Murder of Mireille Knoll

Murder of Mireille Knoll
A banner in Rome commemorating Knoll after her murder
Date23 March 2018 (2018-03-23)
Location11th arrondissement of Paris, France
MotiveAntisemitism
DeathsMireille Knoll
BurialCimetière parisien de Bagneux
SuspectsYacine Mihoub
Alex Carrimbacus

Mireille Knoll (28 December 1932 – 23 March 2018) was an 85-year-old French Jewish woman and Holocaust survivor who was murdered in her Paris apartment on 23 March 2018. The murder has been officially described by French authorities as an antisemitic hate crime.

Life

Early life

Knoll was born on December 22, 1932 in Paris as Mireille Kerbel. Her father Emilio Kerbel (b. 1897)[1][2] , was from Voznesensk[1] the son of Zalcind and Osma Kerbel, while her mother Sara Finkel (b. 1907)[1][2] was from Warsaw. Knoll grew up in the neighbourhood of Marais, on the street Rue de Turenne. Knoll's father a traveling wood-craftsman eventually opened a wooden goods factory.

After the occupation of Paris in 1940, Knoll's parents decided to send Knoll and her brother to safety in the countryside. Knoll's father was, however, arrested and sent to the Gurs internment camp.

Knoll, her brother, and her mother fled France in 1942 just before the Vel' d'Hiv roundup of the Jewish inhabitants of Paris. The family then crossed the border into Portugal, her mother having obtained a Brazilian passport[3] on the strength of Knoll's mother having lived in Brazil.[4]

Knoll's father, having been released, joined his family and they settled in Lisbon. A year later they were at a refugee camp in Caldas da Rainha[1][2], where they stayed for six months before the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee aided the family to emigrate to Canada. Boarding the ship Serpa Pinto[5], they arrived in Philadelphia on the April 6, 1944.[5]

After the liberation, Knoll returned to France. While working in a tailor shop she met a co-worker; Kurt Knoll, Auschwitz survivor[3] whom she married in 1948 . The couple emigrated to Canada, but returned to France in the late 1950s, where the couple had two sons. Knoll's husband supported the family by opening a business, a raincoat workshop in the Jewish district of Sentier.

Murder

There are two alleged assailants, Yacine Mihoub and Alex Carrimbacus. Mihoub was a 29-year-old neighbor of Knoll— who suffered from Parkinson's disease[6]— and had known her since he was a child. Carrimbacus was an unemployed 21-year-old. The two suspects entered the apartment and reportedly stabbed Knoll eleven times, before setting her on fire.[7][8][9] The older suspect told investigators that the younger suspect asserted “She’s a Jew. She must have money.” The two suspects accused each other of the stabbing, one of them claiming that the other shouted Allahu akbar as he stabbed her.[9]

Investigation

The Paris prosecutor’s office characterized the 23 March murder as a hate crime, a murder committed because of the “membership, real or supposed, of the victim of a particular religion.” The New York Times noted, "The speed with which the authorities recognized the hate-crime nature of Ms. Knoll’s murder is being seen as a reaction to the anger of France’s Jews at the official response to that earlier crime, which prosecutors took months to characterize as anti-Semitic."[10][11][12]

Two suspects were immediately taken into custody; authorities revealed only that one of the suspects was born in 1989.[13] Suspect Yacine Mihoub, a French-Algerian of 28 years, the son of Knoll's neighbour, was previously known to authorities as he had sexually assaulted the daughter of Knoll's assistant, who was 12 years old at the time. Mihoub served a few months in prison and was released in September 2017.[14][6] Suspect Alex Carrimbacus, 21 years of age, was acquainted with Mihoub in prison.[6]

On 26 October 2021 trial began in Paris, France for Mihoub and Carrimbacus. On 9 November 2021, Mihoub was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Carrimbacus was acquitted of murder but found guilty of theft with antisemitic motives, for which he was sentenced to 15 years in prison.[15][16]

Funeral

The funeral procession, held on 28 March, drew thousands of mourners who walked solemnly through the streets of Paris.[17] They walked from the Place de la Nation to Knoll's apartment building in the 11th arrondissement.[8] Knoll was buried at the Cimetière parisien de Bagneux. Her grave was visited by Emmanuel Macron, in a private capacity, to support her family in a visit not covered by the media.[18][19]

Context

Main article: Antisemitism in 21st-century France

According to The Atlantic, this killing marked a shift in the attitude of the French government. In contrast with the similar, antisemitic murders of Ilan Halimi (2006) and Sarah Halimi (2017), French authorities immediately called this killing an act of anti-Jewish hatred.[20]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d Registration of Liberated Former Persecutees, 1945-1950
  2. ^ a b c Henriques Pereira, Caroline (2017). [estudogeral.uc.pt "Refugiados da Segunda Guerra Mundial nas Caldas da Rainha (1940-1946)"]. uc.pt. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)
  3. ^ a b Youssef, Michael (5 March 2019). The Third Jihad: Overcoming Radical Islam’s Plan for the West. NavPress. ISBN 978-1-4964-3152-3.
  4. ^ "Daniel Knoll : « Au fond, l'histoire de ma famille est celle de toutes les familles juives »" (in French). 5 April 2018. Retrieved 3 December 2025.
  5. ^ a b Pennsylvania, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists, 1798-1962
  6. ^ a b c BFMTV. "Meurtre de Mireille Knoll: ce que révèle le PV des enquêteurs". BFMTV (in French). Retrieved 6 April 2018.
  7. ^ Weiss, Bari (30 March 2018). "Jews Are Being Murdered in Paris. Again". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
  8. ^ a b Peltier, Elian; Breeden, Aurelien (28 March 2018). "Mireille Knoll, Murdered Holocaust Survivor, Is Honored in Paris". New York Times. Retrieved 28 March 2018.
  9. ^ a b Bremmer, Charles (28 March 2018). "Two charged with killing 85-year-old Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll". The Times (of London). Retrieved 3 April 2018.
  10. ^ Nossiter, Adam (26 March 2018). "She Survived the Holocaust, to Die in a 2018 Hate Crime". New York Times. Retrieved 28 March 2018.
  11. ^ "Slain Holocaust survivor's family: She'd known her killer since he was a boy". The Times of Israel. 27 March 2018. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
  12. ^ Cohen, Ben (10 May 2019). "French Police to Hold Reconstruction of Gruesome Murder of Holocaust Survivor Mireille Knoll". The Algemeiner. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
  13. ^ McAuley, James (28 March 2018). "The brutal killing of a Holocaust survivor raises anti-Semitism fears in France". Washington Post. Retrieved 28 March 2018.
  14. ^ "Mort de Mireille Knoll : ses meurtriers présumés sortaient de prison". Le Monde.fr (in French). 29 March 2018. Retrieved 6 April 2018.
  15. ^ Paris, AFP in (10 November 2021). "Life sentence for murderer of French Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll". the Guardian. Retrieved 12 November 2021.
  16. ^ "Au procès du meurtre de Mireille Knoll, la réclusion criminelle à perpétuité requise contre Yacine Mihoub". Le Monde.fr (in French). 9 November 2021. Retrieved 12 November 2021.
  17. ^ "News Funeral march for murdered Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll draws thousands". DW News. 28 March 2018. Retrieved 28 March 2018.
  18. ^ "Emmanuel Macron a assisté "à titre personnel" aux obsèques de Mireille Knoll". Le Huffington Post (in French). 28 March 2018. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
  19. ^ McAuley, James (27 November 2018). "How the murders of two elderly Jewish women shook France". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 May 2021.
  20. ^ Donadio, Rachel (29 March 2018). "The Meaning of France's March Against Anti-Semitism". The Atlantic. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
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