Mireille Knoll, Murdered Holocaust Survivor, Is Honored in Paris Photo A march in memory of Mireille Knoll in Paris on Wednesday. Ms. Knoll, a 85-year-old Holocaust survivor, was found murdered in her apartment last week. Credit Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters PARIS — Every morning, in a part of the 11th Arrondissement of Paris that has not yet gentrified, Mireille Knoll would sit at home watching television as she waited for her personal care aide.
The aide, Leila Dessante, would clean the small second-floor apartment, cook lunch and keep company with Ms. Knoll, a 85-year-old grandmother and Holocaust survivor. “She would take my face in between her hands and always ask, ‘How are you doing today, sweetheart?’” Ms. Dessante recalled on Wednesday.
Ms. Knoll’s gentle routine was brutally interrupted last week when she was killed in her apartment. The attack shocked her neighbors, France’s Jewish community and the country as a whole. Two suspects, men in their 20s, have been placed under formal i..