Simon Wiesenthal Centre Outraged After Desecration of Memorial to Murdered Jews in French Village

Paris – In a letter of condolences and solidarity to Oradour-sur-Glane Mayor, Philippe Lacroix, Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, shared with today’s citizens “the pain of the revisionist denial and desecration of of the memorial village and museum.”

The Memorial wall was defaced with graffiti deleting the word MARTYR VILLAGE, replaced with LIAR VILLAGE (VILLAGE MENTEUR) and adding WHEN WILL WE HAVE THE TRUTH? REYNOUARD IS RIGHT.” (Vincent Reynouard is a known Holocaust denier and neo-Nazi supporter).

The letter stressed how “in June 1944, just after D-Day and a few weeks before the Liberation of Paris, German Waffen SS, in reprisal against the French Resistance, massacred and destroyed Oradour-sur-Glane: 462 women and children were burnt alive in the village church, a 7-month old baby was crucified and 180 men shot in the legs, doused in petrol and set on fire…”

The Centre argued: “to desecrate this hecatomb is to murder the villagers for a second time.”

“This has been the fate of many Jewish communities throughout Europe. Thus, we share your pain and support a call for identification, arraignment of the perpetrators and appropriate incarceration,” concluded Samuels.

Source: The Simon Wiesenthal Center