Two suspects have been arrested in connection with the barbaric murder of 85-year-old Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll who was stabbed to death in her Paris apartment before her home was set on fire last week.
The brutal killing is being investigated as a suspected anti-Semitic attack by French judiciary.
President Emmanuel Macron described Knoll’s murder as a “dreadful crime” on Twitter and consolidated his determination to fight against anti-Semitism.
The World Jewish Congress has expressed its horror over the murder and called on French authorities to maintain full transparency over the investigation to discover the motivation behind the heinous crime.
French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb committed to finding out the motivations of a “barbaric act” as it reminds France of the darkest hours of its history.
“To attack a Jew, it is to attack France and the values that establish the foundation of the nation,” he said in a statement on Monday.
The Representative Council of French Jews (CRIF) condemned the murder in a statement and urged transparency from authorities so “ reasons for this barbaric crime are known to all as soon as possible.”
Haïm Korsia, the Chief Rabbi in France, also took to Twitter stating, “Anti-Semitism kills. Let’s never forget it.”
CRIF called for a rally in Paris in memory of Knoll yesterday.
The French Jewish community is approximately 400,000 and has witnessed an increase in anti-Semitic attacks in recent years.
Knoll as a child was living in Paris when she escaped the Velodrome d’Hiver cycling track roundup by Nazis in 1942 that resulted in the mass arrest of 13,000 French Jews.
Codenamed ‘Operation Spring Breeze’ the atrocity took place on 16 and 17 July 1942.
Thousands of Jews were deported to Auschwitz concentration camp.