Death to the Jews? | Arun with a View

The back story on the small hamlet called Latin American-Mort-aux-Juifs by my friend Arun:

The reason why La-Mort-aux-Juifs went unnoticed all these years was precisely because practically no one had heard of it. The story is presently all over the French media, which is precisely where Frenchmen and women are learning that such a locality exists.

A couple of things. First, La-Mort-aux-Juifs has been called a “village” or even “town” in English-language reports, which is inaccurate. It is a “lieu-dit”—which may be translated as “locality” literally: said place or locality—, in the commune of Courtemaux population 239—itself a place practically no one outside the eastern Loiret has heard of. Communes are the smallest administrative units in France of which there are some 36,681 in the 101 departments of metropolitan and overseas France, the majority with populations of under 500. Most communes have lieux-dits—which are sometimes indicated, sometimes not—, referring to a bit of the commune that had a specific identity in centuries past.

As for La-Mort-aux-Juifs, it consists of two houses and a farm above photo, is on a country road probably taken by no one except the few people who live around there, and is not indicated on any sign. In other words, even if one drove through the place, one would not know of the lieu-dit’s name.

Secondly, it is not even clear what the name of this lieu-dit is supposed to signify. As a piece in Marianne pointed out—and that I had been wondering about—La-Mort-aux-Juifs does not, in fact, translate as “death to the Jews.” Without the definite article “la” and the dashes—which are generally the rule in place names in France—, it would indeed mean this. But the definite article and dashes change the meaning, which is indeterminate but may simply indicate a place where Jews were killed—maybe even massacred—eight or nine centuries ago. For all one knows, the lieu-dit may have even been named this to commemorate such an event, to remember a tragedy…

via Death to the Jews? | Arun with a View.