The facade of the Shoah Memorial located in Drancy, in Seine-Saint-Denis, was defaced during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, with elected officials and authorities in the department denouncing an anti-Semitic act.
“During the night of Tuesday March 12 to Wednesday March 13, damage was committed to the facade of the Shoah Memorial.
An impact from a lead shot on a window on the facade cracked the glass,”
the prefect of the Ile-de-France department told AFP.
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The two photos accompanying the prefect's publication show one of the large windows of the facade completely cracked, with an impact causing the cracks.
The Shoah Memorial in Drancy was inaugurated in 2012, on the site of the former internment camp which was the main departure point, between August 1941 and August 1944, for Jewish deportees from France to the extermination camps. Nazis.
“Climate of unprecedented increase in anti-Semitism”
“Since October 7, 2023, we have unfortunately had to deplore three anti-Semitic acts, and today, even if we await the conclusions of the investigation, this fourth incident is at least a malicious act
,” reacted to AFP Jacques Fredj, director of the Shoah Memorial.
On October 7, Hamas commandos infiltrated southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, carrying out a bloody attack against civilians on a scale and violence not seen since the creation of Israel in 1948. In retaliation , Israel declared a war to
“annihilate”
Hamas, relentlessly shelling the Gaza Strip.
Jacques Fredj also underlines that
“the climate of unprecedented rise in anti-Semitism in France shows to what extent the educational work carried out by the Memorial in Drancy and throughout France is more necessary than ever.”
The institution filed a complaint Wednesday morning.
Reacting to the prefect's tweet denouncing the damage, LFI MP Raquel Garrido said she was
“outraged by this filthy act”
.
“To degrade this place which is so important to the history of Seine-Saint-Denis and the country is a shame.
I hope that the author will be apprehended and punished,”
added the elected representative for the Drancy constituency.
Stéphane Troussel, president of the departmental council, declared that he was
“deeply revolted by this anti-Semitic act”
which, according to him, constitutes
“an attack on the memory of the Jewish community, but also on our universal memory”
.