The third night of riots following the untimely death of 17-year-old Nahel M., who was shot dead by police officers during a traffic stop gone wrong, saw a Holocaust memorial site defaced in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre where the shooting occurred.
The Memorial to the Martyrs of Deportation, a monument commemorating Jews and resistance fighters deported during the Second World War, was vandalized with anti-police slogans by rioters on the sidelines of a protest march in remembrance of the slain 17-year-old on the afternoon of Thursday, June 29th, the Brooklyn-based newspaper The Algemeiner reports.
As can be seen from the video and images circulating across social networks, rioters vandalized the monument with spray paint that reads: “Police scum from Saint-Soline to Nanterre—don’t forget or forgive.” Meanwhile, on the façade of a building not far from the monument, the words: “We are going to make you a Shoah”—the Hebrew term for the Holocaust—were also tagged.
The brazen act of antisemitic vandalism has, understandably, prompted strong reactions from Jewish groups across the world.
“It is an absolute outrage and a disgrace. Nothing is sacred,” Ariel Goldmann, who heads up the United Jewish Social Fund, wrote on Twitter.
The European Jewish Congress (EJC) also expressed its dismay, writing: “It is truly horrifying to witness the Memorial to the Martyrs of Deportation in Nanterre being vandalized. This shameful act of disrespect for the memory of the victims of the Holocaust must be unequivocally condemned and those responsible held accountable.”
The Combat Antisemitism Movement also condemned the act of vandalism, writing in a Twitter post: “The Memorial to the Martyrs of the Deportation in Nanterre honors the 200,000 people who were sent from Vichy France to German concentration camps during WWII. The vandalization of this monument desecrates the memory of the victims of the Nazis. Amid the social unrest currently roiling France, Holocaust memorials must be respected and protected.”
Local broadcaster Radio Shalom reported that, although not specifically targeted, several stores and restaurants owned by Jews were set alight in the northern Parisian suburb of Sarcelles. A slew of non-Jewish businesses were torched by rioters as well.
Additionally, during a live broadcast of the riots by the Brut media group that was posted to social media, the words “death to Jews” and “death to pigs” can be heard.
Ultraviolent rioting, which so far has seen hundreds of cars set alight, and police and commercial buildings torched, has engulfed the whole of France, from the northern city of Lille to the southern port of Marseille.
