More French tombstones damaged
V A DOZEN smashed graves in a Jewish cemetery in south-western France have been discovered in what could be the latest in a series of antisemitic attacks across the country.
Deborah Loupien-Suares, the leader of the Jewish community in the towns of Bayonne and Biarritz, said she discovered several tombstones and a commemorative plaque broken while visiting the graveyard on Sunday. The plaque was reportedly dedicated to a girl who was deported during the Second World War. The cemetery had been progressively extended since the late 17th century, TheLocal.fr website reported. Authorities said an investigation was under way.
“There is no antisemitic graffiti and I don’t want to inflame a debate. I want the investigation to take place calmly,” Ms Loupien-Suares told AFP, but noted that a Catholic cemetery “just opposite and more easily accessible” was not damaged.
Jean-Rene Etchegaray, the mayor of Bayonne, said: “This is the first time this has happened in Bayonne, where the Jewish community has been perfectly integrated for years.”
Antisemitic offences in France rose by 74 per cent in 2018, the most recent year for which statistics are available, with many incidents targeting unattended Jewish graveyards.
V A BODY of European rabbis has criticised plans in Lithuania’s parliament to declare neither the country nor its leaders participated in the Holocaust.
The draft legislation, first reported in local media last month, is based on the view that the Lithuanian state was occupied between 1940 and 1990 by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, and was therefore not in control of its own actions.
“I want to say that we cannot have the same attitude as in Western Europe to the Holocaust,” said politician Arunas Gumuliauskas, who is preparing the law.
He told Lithuania’s parliament: “Why? Because, unlike the West, we went through two occupations — Soviet and Nazi. This means that we have a completely unique history and a unique interpretation.”
But Pinchas Goldschmit, president of the Conference of European Rabbis, called it a “direct affront to hundreds of thousands of Lithuanian Jews whose murders were aided and abetted by Lithuanian political and military leaders, as well as local Lithuanian populations.”
He said: “The Lithuanian Government must face up to its history, not seek to ignore or deny it. The facts are clear: under Nazi occupation, the Provisional Lithuanian Government, Lithuanian paramilitary battalions and local Lithuanian populations were complicit in the slaughter of more than 90 per cent of approximately 220,000 Jews living in Lithuania.”
Efraim Zuroff, from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, said the proposals were an “outrage”, telling JTA that he hoped “common sense will prevail and the legislation is dropped.”
Wartime responsibility became a contentious issue in nearby Poland in 2018, when the country’s parliament agreed a law creating an imprisonable offence of describing Nazi death camps as “Polish”.
An outcry from Israel and Jewish groups led to the law being amended.