On the occasion of the day of memory of genocides and the prevention of crimes against humanity on January 27, the mayor of Strasbourg Jeanne Barseghian (EELV) has just announced a project to develop the square de l’Ancienne Synagogue. This project is due to end in early 2025. A monument and a garden in memory of the victims of the Shoah will be built on the spot where a synagogue was burned by the Nazis in 1940, the city’s mayor Jeanne Barseghian announced on Thursday.
“Evacuated in 1939, Strasbourg and Alsace, mourn those who died here or during their flight to the Dordogne, in the maquis or elsewhere,” declared the councilor while presenting the project on the website of the old synagogue, quai Kléber. “There are at least 3,572 of them, surely more, and we continue to complete this list, and we want all these names to be registered in our public space,” she continued. This site “is resolutely part of our plan to combat anti-Semitism at a time when anti-Semitic acts have increased fourfold in our country,” underlined the mayor, citing the figures revealed Thursday by the Representative Council of Institutions. Jews of France (Crif).
A stele also in memory of the victims of Struthof
A memorial garden, worth 500,000 euros, planted with flowers in shades of orange and red to represent fire as well as green and blue to symbolize life, will be created. The perimeter of the old synagogue will be traced and a model of the building will be exhibited. A stele will also be installed in memory of the victims of Struthof, the only Nazi concentration camp in France, then installed in annexed Alsace. “Strasbourg, the European diplomatic capital, a city symbol of suffering but also of reconciliation, had to have a Holocaust monument,” declared Thierry Roos, honorary vice-president of the Consistory, at the origin of this project. He hopes that the place will “educate young people” while “18% of young people do not know what the Shoah is”.