Paris Holocaust monument for children ‘censored’ in unusual case of vandalism

Among sentences painted over was assertion that victims were ‘killed in terrible and cruel conditions,’ words ‘extermination’ and that Nazis wanted to ‘annihilate’ Jews

By Cnaan Liphshiz 17 May 2019, 4:55 pm 1

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Cnaan Liphshiz was a Jewish World reporter at The Times of Israel

The monument to children killed in the Holocaust in Paris, France that was vandalized in May 2019 (European Jewish Congress)

JTA — Parts of a text commemorating the murder of Jewish children in the Holocaust were painted over, as if redacted, at a newly opened memorial park for victims of the genocide in Paris.

Police received reports this week of the unusual vandalism at the memorial space that opened in 2017 near the main Vel d’Hiv monument for Jewish children who were murdered by the Nazis with help from French authorities.

Among the sentences painted over was assertion that victims were “killed in terrible and cruel conditions” as well as the words “extermination” and that the Nazis wanted to “annihilate” Jews.

Also painted over was the number, 4,115, of French Jewish children who disappeared without a trace during the Holocaust, after being killed by the Nazis following events like the Vel d’Hiv roundup in 1942, the Le Parisien magazine reported Wednesday.

“Can you imagine something more lowly,” the French Jewish philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy wrote on Twitter Thursday about the incident.