(Jewish Group) To Counter Anti-Semitism, French Women Find Strength In Diversity At Auschwitz

France has been shocked by incidents of anti-Semitic vandalism in the last couple weeks, including 80 tombstones in a Jewish cemetery painted with graffiti and swastikas earlier this month.

French President Emmanuel Macron has said France and other Western democracies are experiencing a "resurgence of anti-Semitism unseen since World War II."

One effort to counter the hate brought about 150 French women together from different religious, ethnic and economic backgrounds to go to a notorious symbol of terror and genocide from that war: Auschwitz. Together they wanted to learn more about the Holocaust, in the hopes of bringing a message of greater understanding back to France.

"Women can transmit and educate — to their children, to the rest of society," said Samia Essabbaa, a high school teacher who is president of the diverse group Langage de Femmes, or Women's Talk.

The group started their tour at the Judenrampe, or the Jewish platform, where nearly a million men, women and children from around Europe disembarked from trains to go straight to the gas chambers.

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