O pinion
A Tombstone in a Paris Cemetery
BY GERARD LEVAL
DURING A VISIT to Paris
not long ago, I walked over to
Place du Trocadéro, the large
plaza so familiar to tourists
seeking the best views of the
Eiffel Tower. However, rather
than view the Eiffel Tower, I
walked a few steps to the south
and ventured into the large
Passy Cemetery to see the elab-
orate graves, including those of
many noted figures in French
history and culture.

I walked past the tombs
of Claude Debussy, the great
impressionist composer, and the
painter Edouard Manet and his
sister-in-law, Berthe Morisot. I
noted the tombs of a former pres-
ident of the French republic and
of prominent authors, indus-
trialists and military heroes of
the last century.

But my attention was drawn
to a simple reddish granite
tomb. At the top of the stone
there was a brief inscription
in French, “To the memory of
Isaac, Anna, Aline,” followed
by a very Jewish surname. Just
below the names were the words
“who disappeared in 1942.” The
words did not leave any doubt
as to the circumstances of the
deaths of the three individu-
als. They had been deported
during the German occupation
of France and murdered.

Such inscriptions are sadly
not uncommon in Paris cem-
eteries, a silent tribute to the
thousands of Jewish victims of
the Nazis and their collabora-
tors. But it was what appeared
just below the inscription that
caught my eye: It was a Star
of David with a large cross
engraved on top of it. To the left
of this symbol was the name of
another deceased individual,
also bearing the very Jewish
surname of the Holocaust vic-
tims, an individual who had
died relatively recently in 2003.

Familiar as I am with the
history of the post-World War
II French community, I readily
understood the tragedy repre-
sented by this grave. Following
the war and the deportation
of members of this family, one
of the survivors had elected to
convert to Catholicism. In spite
of this choice, the survivor felt
an obligation to remember his
relatives, but to do those from
his new religious vantage point.

I do not purport to judge the
actions of the survivor in his
decision to leave his Jewish tradi-
tion and adopt the Catholic faith
of the majority of French people.

Perhaps it was the product of a
religious revelation. Maybe it was
the desire to leave the burdens of
being Jewish behind and inte-
grate into the fabric of France.

Possibly it was the hope of ensur-
ing the safety of future genera-
tions — to inoculate them against
the hatred that had deprived his
relatives of life. Since I did not
live through the persecution of
the Holocaust, I am unwilling to
judge those who did.

Nonetheless, the pain that
I felt while standing over this
grave arose from a sense that
the ambiguous symbol was
a desecration of the martyr-
dom that the three victims had
assuredly experienced in 1942.

They had been killed because
they were Jews. It seemed so
tragic that their memorial
should try to dissimulate the
true cause of their suffering
or suggest that their suffering
could be redeemed through
adherence to another faith.

The sight of that grave served
to reinforce the reverberating
effects of the Holocaust, as its
consequences continue to echo
through the years, and of some
of the subtler ways in which
there are still efforts to under-
mine and distort its lessons.

My encounter with this
tombstone also served to
reinforce one of my longtime
concerns regarding Holocaust
memory and respect for the
Jewish dead: the steadily dis-
appearing tombs in Jewish
sections of Paris’ municipal
cemeteries. Over the years,
I have noted with increas-
ing distress the removal of
graves of Jews resulting from
the apparent failure of fam-
ilies and their descendants
to pay the require mainte-
nance fees. Under applicable
French law, even a “perpetual
concession” in a municipal
cemetery is only an assurance
apology as anything more than
a public-relations move.

When criticism manifests
as hatred, it blinds us from
the complexities of the Arab-
Israeli conflict. Omar’s tweet
is, ironically, exactly why we
need AIPAC.

It is disturbing that someone
with such clear animosity toward
a persecuted minority has such
an influential position as a
member of the Foreign Affairs
committee. As a Democrat, I
hope my party’s leadership takes
a stand and removes Omar from
that committee. l
of a right to the grave as long
as officially recognized direct
descendants continue to pay
the very considerable annual
maintenance fees.

And the authorities do not
make it easy to establish ances-
try and to make maintenance
fee payments — as I can attest
from my own lengthy and frus-
trating efforts to protect the
grave of my grandparents.

With a diminishing Jewish
population and families dis-
tanced from prior generations,
many Jewish graves are being
removed. A significant number
of the disappearing graves con-
tain inscriptions to the mem-
ory of victims of the Holocaust,
placed there by grieving sur-
vivors. The removal of those
graves, erasing forever the mem-
ory of the victims whose names
appeared on the gravestones,
effectively commits a second
destruction of the individuals
who were so horribly deprived
of life just two generations ago.

My efforts to alert Jewish
religious authorities in France
to take action to prevent these
terrible acts of desecration
have not resulted in any con-
crete results. Those authorities
simply invoke French law and
assert that nothing can be done.

However, we Jews know that
the act of caring for our dead
is one of the most important
mitzvahs, an obligation that is
a broad and vital one. We must
make certain that the dead are
given a proper burial and that
their place of burial is main-
tained. Symbolically, we all do
this whenever we visit a Jewish
grave and place small stones
at the grave — echoing the
very real obligation to protect
graves from marauders in an
earlier era. Preventing the wan-
ton removal of Jewish graves
and the exhumation of Jewish
remains to be tossed into a col-
lective public grave is equally an
imperative. It is not appropriate
to be resigned to desecration.

Allowing Jewish martyr-
dom to become a kind of ecu-
menical statement through
the conflating of the symbols
of Judaism and Christianity
seems very disrespectful.

Allowing the destruction of
Jewish graves and the removal
of memorials to those of our
brethren who were martyred
and deprived of a proper burial
is reprehensible.

My brief walk in the Passy
Cemetery highlighted the
continuing need to prevent
the desecration of the mem-
ory of those Jews who were
destroyed in the Holocaust
and the urgency of protect-
ing the remains of Jews whose
descendants may have ceased
or become unable to care for
their last resting places. l
Gerard Leval is a partner in a
Washington, D.C., law firm. He
writes and lectures on topics of
French and Jewish interest.

Harel Continued from Page 17
caricature in November 2012,
when she tweeted that “Israel
has hypnotized the world, may
Allah awaken the people and
help them see the evil doings
of Israel.”
Hinting at tropes of “dual
loyalty” and the “schem-
ing Jew” with great vitriol,
Omar has exhibited a deeply
ingrained bias. Therefore, it is
difficult to interpret Omar’s
18 MARCH 21, 2019
Michael Harel is a senior at
Binghamton University majoring
in political science with a minor in
Middle Eastern studies. He is the
2018-’19 Binghamton CAMERA
Fellow. JEWISH EXPONENT
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