A memorial to commemorate those who rescued Jews in France during the Holocaust was defaced with red hands in an act of vandalism described as “unspeakable” by the Paris mayor.
The Wall of the Righteous was vandalized overnight between Monday and Tuesday, along with around 10 other locations in the Marais, Paris's historically Jewish neighbourhood.
The wall bears the names of over 3,900 people who risked their lives to help save Jews in France during the country’s Nazi occupation in World War Two.
May 14 is the anniversary of the first major round-up of Jews by French police in 1941.
A picture shows red hand graffitis painted on a wall of the Sainte-Croix de la Bretonnerie street, in the area where earlier the Holocaust memorial was vandalized with the same red hand prints in Paris, on May 14, 2024. (Photo by ANTONIN UTZ/AFP via Getty Images)
The UK’s Holocaust Educational Trust said they were “shocked and saddened to see the antisemitic vandalism of the Shoah memorial in Paris with blood red hands on the Wall of the Righteous.
“This is a disgraceful act of hate, ignorance and disrespect. It is an abuse of the memory of the 6 million Jewish victims and also the righteous, who risked everything to save Jewish lives.”
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo reported the graffiti to prosecutors as a possible antisemitism.
Hidalgo said, “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.”
(Photo by ANTONIN UTZ/AFP via Getty Images)
Ariel Weil, the mayor of Paris’ central districts, posted photos of the damage on social media and said, “On the very day of the anniversary of this event which prefigures the Vel'd'Hiv roundup where many children were arrested before being exterminated, the walls of the Marais in front of nurseries and schools were defiled”.
Other spots daubed with the red hands overnight included schools and nurseries around the Marais.
Workers arrived at the scene to remove the graffiti by late Tuesday morning.
