Mireille Knoll, murdered Holocaust survivor, honoured in Paris

Mireille Knoll, the 85-year-old Holocaust survivor murdered in her Paris apartment in a horrific antisemitic attack in 2018, has been commemorated in the French capital with a street named in her honor.

In a ceremony, the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, inaugurated the “Allée Mireille Knoll” in the city’s 11th arrondissement, where Knoll resided, accompanied by local dignitaries and Jewish leaders.

Knoll was murdered in her apartment on the Avenue Philippe-Auguste on March 23, 2018. Firefighters who arrived at Knoll’s building later that night to answer an emergency call discovered her partially-burned body with 11 stab wounds.

Two men, Yacine Mihoub, 31, and his associate Alex Carrimbacus, 26, have been charged with the killing. The pair were understood to have targeted Knoll after Mihoub, a neighbor of Knoll’s since the age of eight, told Carrimbacus that she would have plenty of money as she was Jewish. Mihoub and Carrimbacus, who met each other in prison, have lengthy criminal records for offenses including theft, possession of narcotics and violence. Mihoub additionally has a conviction for sexual assault.

A police investigation following Knoll’s death established that Mihoub was attracted to Islamist ideas and slogans. According to the newspaper Le Figaro, Mihoub was also “compulsively addicted to antisemitic websites and a staunch defender of Hamas.”

The unveiling of the street in Knoll’s honor fulfilled the pledge made by Hidalgo shortly after the killing. The street sign carries a text explaining that Knoll was “lamentably tortured and murdered because she was born a Jew. An innocent victim of obscurantism and antisemitic hatred at the age of 85.”

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