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Two weeks after the desecration of the Jewish cemetery in Quatzenheim (Bas-Rhin), the stele marking the site of the former Strasbourg synagogue, dynamited by the Nazis in 1941, was vandalized on the night of Friday to Saturday, triggering a cascade of convictions.
Saturday morning, " around 9 o'clock a passerby reported to (the police) degradations on the memorial stela " of the old synagogue, overthrown in the night, said the prefecture of Bas-Rhin. The monument, which weighs 1.6 tons, was put in place around 15:30 by the services of the city. Police opened an investigation to identify the perpetrator (s) of the degradation.
" I am both aghast and angry, reacted Alain Fontanel, first deputy mayor of Strasbourg. This is a new anti-Semitic exaction. In addition, we are on a place of memory, the Great Synagogue of Strasbourg, which was razed by the Nazis during the Second World War. To attack this memory there, it is at the same time criminal, it is obviously criminally responsible and it is of an unspeakable stupidity. "
" Sadness and anger "
" This stele is very heavy, it is not an act that is done like that. It is an act that must be organized to several. Really, we must find those who did that, "continued Alain Fontanel. He evoked video surveillance footage showing Saturday " a little before 7am " the presence near the stele of a car which must be checked if its occupants have " committed the act ."
The degradation of the stele, which is part of a general context of rising antisemitic acts in France , triggered a wave of indignation. It sparked " sadness, disgust, anger and revolt " in the Great Mosque of Strasbourg, said in a statement his President Saïd Aalla, condemning " with the greatest firmness this new anti-Semitic act ". " No to this anti-Semitism that is allowed everything in this climate of violence and hatred of the other ", tweeted Nathalie Loiseau, Minister in charge of European Affairs.