Europe 1 with AFP 7:47 p.m., October 28, 2021

On the third day of the trial for the murder of Mireille Knoll, stabbed on March 23, 2018, the path of the octogenarian was reviewed, from his happy childhood to his end of life in Paris, through his personality. .

The question of the anti-Semitic nature of the murder was also raised.

"Warm", "sparkling", "benevolent" ... The same laudatory terms turned Thursday at the Paris Assizes to describe Mireille Knoll, "little bit of a sweet woman" of 85 years and of Jewish faith. She was stabbed and burned on March 23, 2018, in her Paris apartment. A touch of gaiety marked the third day of the trial of her two suspected murderers, Yacine Mihoub, 32, and Alex Carrimbacus, 25, on the evocation of the "endearing" way that Mireille Knoll "had" to brighten up the life of those around him "and to see" life all in pink ". 

His was however "a singular life crossed by tragedies", summarizes the president of the court.

His parents, first.

His father, a tailor, born in Ukraine and holder of a Brazilian passport because he had a time lived there.

His mother, a housewife from Poland.

Both had fled the pogroms and found refuge in France.

Mireille Knoll, "the pretty, flirtatious and cheerful little brunette"

Childhood is happy, says the personality investigator. Until 1941, when the father, "sensing an imminent danger" for the Jews, left for the free zone with Mireille's brother. A year of painful separation for "the little princess of the family". In July 1942, Mireille managed to escape Paris with her mother, "the day she learned that the Vel D'Hiv roundup took place" - the biggest arrest of Jews in the country during World War II.

The family, reunited again, will live in Portugal, then in Canada, before returning to France where the parents fight to recover their accommodation in the Marais in Paris, squatted by the concierge. Then "the pretty, flirtatious and cheerful little brunette" meets Kurt, who grew up in Austria and is a survivor of Auschwitz. A period in camp where the father will say "nothing to his children", which "we suffered enormously", testifies at the trial Daniel Knoll, one of their sons. 

Mireille was a "very loving mother", according to the personality survey. She was also a flirtatious, dynamic woman, eager for outings, like her friend Renée Jean, with a colorful testimony. Leather jacket, golden hoops and painted eyelids, the 85-year-old friend evokes cinemas, restaurants and road trips with "Daniel", Mireille's love since she was 72 years old. Then divorced, she had met him in Venice during an organized trip. He too was a survivor of the death camps. It is also question before the court of its respect for Jewish traditions and festivals. Then the income of the one who worked only a very short time, as a nurse, and lived since the end of the 1950s in a social housing of 55 m2 in the east of Paris.

"Nothing to steal from Mom"

The issue of the anti-Semitic nature of his murder is at the heart of the trial.

Alex Carrimbacus says he was called by Yacine Mouhib for a "money plan" to join him at the victim's home.

The second accuses the first of having asked if Mireille Knoll was "armored".

Mireille had "800 euros of income, APL (personalized housing assistance) included", assures her son Daniel.

And to add, without looking at the accused Yacine Mihoub, whom he calls "the monster": "He has known her since the age of eight", her mother living in the same building as Mireille Knoll.

"He knows very well that there is nothing to steal from mom. I don't understand."

However, thefts were committed during this afternoon of March 28, which was still unclear, each of the accused referring responsibility for the death of the frail lady of 45 kg, sick with Parkinson's, physically very diminished. One element stirred the debates on Thursday: a long-bladed kitchen knife, fortuitously discovered by Yacine Mouhib's brother at home, behind the washing machine. Their mother assures that it is hers, the children of Mireille Knoll that it belonged to the victim. "I took him to my brother's house" when he was "on vacation", Yacine Mihoub said without being disassembled. "There are only round-tipped knives in his house." When the president asks him why he placed it behind the washing machine, the accused replies, without finishing his sentence: "You know,when I am alcoholic, I do things… ".