Paris memorial for people who saved Jews during Holocaust vandalized

PARIS, France — A Paris memorial honoring people who distinguished themselves by helping to rescue Jews in France during the country’s Nazi occupation in World War II was defaced Tuesday with painted blood-red hands, vandalism decried as “unspeakable” by the Paris mayor.

The attack on the Wall of the Righteous comes in the context of tensions and anger in France over the Israel-Hamas war. Antisemitic acts have surged in the country with the largest Jewish and Muslim populations in western Europe.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said the memorial was vandalized overnight Monday to Tuesday. She said she has filed a complaint with the Paris prosecutor.

“No cause can justify such degradations that dirty the memory of the victims of the Shoah and of the Righteous who saved Jews at risk to their lives,” Hidalgo said in a statement.

The wall bears the names of more than 3,900 people recognized as having risked their lives to help save Jews in France.

Ariel Weil, the mayor of Paris’ central districts, posted photos on the social media platform X of the damage. The photos showed more than two dozen blood-red hands painted on the memorial’s stonework and others on a wall in the Paris neighborhood.

In March, a Jewish man was attacked outside a synagogue in Paris.

A sharp rise in antisemitic acts in France and the rest of Europe has been reported since the beginning of Israel’s war against Hamas. Data from the French Interior Ministry and the Jewish Community Protection Service watchdog showed that 1,676 antisemitic acts were reported in 2023, compared to 436 the previous year, the highest increase in recorded antisemitic incidents of any country with reliable statistics.

Of last year’s antisemitic incidents in France, the tally showed that 74 percent happened after Hamas’s October 7 massacre, in which terrorists infiltrated Israel, killing some 1,200 people and kidnapping 252.

The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 35,000 people in the Strip have been killed so far in the ensuing Israeli offensive in Gaza, a toll that cannot be independently verified. The UN says some 24,000 fatalities have been identified at hospitals at this time. The rest of the total figure is based on murkier Hamas “media reports.” It also includes some 15,000 terror operatives Israel says it has killed in battle. Israel also says it killed some 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.