Portrait of Holocaust survivor restored

PORTRAITS OF a prominent Holocaust survivor that were daubed with swastikas in Paris this week have been restored by the artist who made them.

An unknown person attacked images of Simone Veil, the survivor of Nazi death camps and a European Parliament president who died in 2017, on Monday.

They were painted on postboxes near a town hall in the south east of the French capital.

Artist Christian Guemy, who also goes by the name C215, tweeted a photo of the restored images. He said: “Simone Veil is back ... stronger than the barbarity of anonymous people.”

According to French authorities, registered incidents of anti-Semitism rose to 541 last year from 311 in 2017, an increase of 74 per cent.

Christian symbols have also been targets in France recently.

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe condemned damage done by vandals to five churches last week, and urged the French to respect religion.

“In our secular Republic, we respect the places of worship. These acts shock me,” he said.

Meanwhile, Germany’s Central Council of Jews is calling for action following a report showing a rise in anti-Semitic attacks in the country.

The Tagesspiegel newspaper reported that preliminary government figures provided at the request of the Left Party to parliament showed 1,646 anti-Semitic crimes registered in 2018, up from 1,504 in 2017. Violent crimes rose to 62 from 37.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer said the government’s position “is fully clear – that anti-Semitism has no place in Germany”.

But Central Council of Jews president Josef Schuster called for a “stronger commitment” from police, politicians and the judiciary.