She Survived the Holocaust, to Die in a 2018 Hate Crime - New York Times

Other anti-Semitic crimes that have rattled France include the 2015 attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris by Amedy Coulibaly, a heavily armed Frenchman, who killed four people, and the 2012 assault on a Jewish school in Toulouse by Mohammed Merah, who killed three children and a teacher after killing three soldiers.

By Monday, two suspects had been arrested in the murder of Ms. Knoll: one a neighbor who knew her well, and both young men in their 20s. “One of them had known her for a long time,” Mr. Kalifat said. “He had friendly relations with her.”

The Paris prosecutor’s office declined to characterize the origins of the two people; Mr. Kalifat said the principal suspect was of North African origin.

“These are not just thugs,” Mr. Kalifat said. “She was attacked because she was Jewish. This is what characterizes anti-Semitism in our country.” he said.

The suspect “said that Jews have money, and that was the reason he attacked her,” Mr. Kalifat said, whose group is often consulted by the government. “She was absolutely massacred. Eleven knife wounds. That is hatred of the Jews, we see it in the fury of the murderer. This is how we recognize anti-Semitism.”

France’s chief rabbi, Haim Korsia, said in a tweet: “Horrified by the tragic death of Mireille Knoll, who escaped the Shoah, nearly a year to the day after the murder of Sarah Halimi-Attal. The horror of the crime and the violence of the executioners are identical and are a negation of humanity …”

Ms. Knoll was the widow of an Auschwitz survivor, according to press reports.

“The Jews are on the front lines,” said Mr. Habib, the member of Parliament. “They start with the Jews, and afterward they kill other Frenchmen,” he said. “Jews are being killed because they are Jews. That is very serious.”

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