Speech by André Kaspi for the Hazkarah (9 October 2016)

Speech by André Kaspi on October 9, 2016 at the Shoah Memorial © Pierre-Emmanuel Weck

The Hazkarah is an annual commemoration dedicated to the memory of the unburied victims of the Shoah.

Sunday, October 9, 2016 – Address by André Kaspi, historian, professor emeritus at the University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

'Ladies and gentlemen,

The invitation you addressed to me, Mr. President, touches me deeply. Je ne pensais pas qu'un jour, dans ce Mémorial inauguré il y a 60 ans, il me viendrait pour commémorer le souvenir des victimes de la Shoah. You have entrusted me with a heavy responsibility, Mr. President. The task that has been assigned to me seems all the more formidable.

At this particular moment, I would like to evoke the memory of two members of my family. My grandfather’s name appears on the wall of the deportees. Icek Koralstein lived several lives. He was a butcher in Warsaw (à l’époque où Poland, fiercely anti-Semitic, faisait partie de l’Empire russe). He immigrated to the United States. Milwaukee and Brooklyn did not satisfy him.

He settled for a short time in Mandatory Palestine. He finally chose to settle in France, in Paris in the Marais, then in Belleville. The country of Zola, the homeland of human rights, la nation phare qui avait enfin reconnu l’innocence du capitaine Dreyfus, c’était, croyait-il, la fin du voyage. This is where he would live with his children and grandchildren.

Rafled on February 11, 1943, he was deported at 67 years old with 700 other old men on March 2. I don’t even know if he reached Auschwitz. You understand why I cannot remain insensitive to the Shoah. Sur mes épaules pèse le poids d'une tragédie familiale, et surtout le poids de la tragédie juive.

Je porte au sein de moi un autre passé. Mon frère aîné, Lazare Kaspi, pose pour la photo armé d'un fusil d'une autre guerre. He commanded a maquis of the Drôme. Il avait interrompu ses études en droit pour faire partie de cette résistance qui a si courageusement contribué à la libération de notre pays.

Born to a father of Romanian origin and a mother of Polish origin, he died for France on June 4, 1944, two days before the Normandy landing. He was 22 years old.

These broken lives haunt me. They made me a Jewish historian – I did say : à Jewish historian and not à Jewish historian. C’est à travers l’histoire, l’histoire de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, l’histoire des déportations, l’histoire de ma famille que je suis vraiment devenu juif.

In The Testament of a murdered Jewish poet, Elie Wiesel imagines a character who strives to define his Judaism. « À culture ? Tu ne le sais pas. A civilization? You don’t experience it. A philosophy? You don’t practice it. A homeland? You don’t live in Israel. [... ] To be Jewish is an awareness." J’ajouterais que pour moi, c’est une conscience historique.

It was not by chance that I, still a young and timid researcher, went to the Centre for Contemporary Jewish Documentation, founded in 1943 by Isaac Schneersohn.

Georges Wellers, Léon Czertok, Joseph Billig, Léon Poliakov welcomed me with kindness. They quickly adopted me, to consider myself one of their own. They granted me their friendship, to the point qu’avec Serge Klarsfeld, nous avons mis en place et publié en 1979 l’une des toutes premières conférences sur Vichy, la Résistance et les Juifs.

Since then, je n'ai pas cessé de scruter l'histoire récente des Juifs, de m’y inclure, de considérer que cette histoire est aussi ma propre histoire, que moi aussi j'ai la responsabilité de l'analyser, de la faire connaître, de la transmettre, in a word, il appartient à moi, comme à beaucoup d’autres, de le sauver.

The last survivors tell us, with their poor words, with the bread they carry within them, with their inability to fully share it, the horror they experienced. They know that one cannot imagine what they have experienced. Even worse, they guess that we do not want to hear them, that they are talking about a distant past, a world that does not exist anymore. So, for a long time, they kept quiet.

Soon, we all know, il n'y aura plus de survivants des camps. Les derniers témoins disparaîtront à leur tour. The role of historians will be even more crucial than today. Even more than today, we will have to take over, assume a heavy succession, fully accept this responsibility.

Are we capable of it? This is the question that troubles us.

It is that, nous en sommes conscients, il nous incombe d’expliquer l’inexplicable. Même si on sent une émotion, légitime aussi bien qu’irrepressible. Obviously, the Holocaust was the most striking, the most incomprehensible moment in the history of the twentieth century. I insist on this point. One can analyze, weigh and dissect the massacres that tragically illustrated the 20th century. None is really comparable to the Shoah.

How a country like Germany, such a brilliant civilization that gave the world Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and so many other musicians, which sheltered illustrious painters, immortels philosophers, writers like Goethe and Schiller, who built cities like Munich, Berlin or Weimar, which has shone on Europe, qui n’a jamais cessé de témoigner de son intelligence, de son développement spirituel, de son sens commun, comment et pourquoi l'Allemagne s'est abandonnée aux délires d'un criminel psychopathique?

How and why did she cover herself with a thousand concentration and extermination camps and sub-camps?
How and why did a state, in principle based on the law, create Einsatzgruppen to assassinate nearly two million Jews with machine guns?
How and why did he operate gas chambers to supply crematory ovens?
Comment et pourquoi l'une des nations les plus industrialisées du monde a mis ses connaissances, son dynamisme et sa technologie de pointe au service d'une entreprise génocidaire ?
How could doctors have conducted criminal experiments on children?
Peut-il être justifié qu'un état qui s'est proclamé socialiste, qui a annoncé la naissance d'un nouveau monde, qui a proclamé la fin de l'exploitation de l'homme par l’homme, ait accepté pendant deux ans de défendre ses intérêts nationaux, de former une alliance avec le Troisième Reich ?
How to make it understood that the democratic world did not react sooner? Pourquoi les Américains et les Britanniques ne font pas tout pour détruire les camps d’extermination et de concentration? Pourquoi les Soviets sont-ils restés inactifs?
Why did the Pope murmur a condemnation du meurtre des Juifs et garde sur la Shoah un silence aussi cautious qu’il est coupable ?
All these questions require des réponses.

In the absence of understanding everything and explaining everything, in the absence of appealing to reason where the irrationnel and the incomprehensible reign, one must not give up. We are all stewards of history, bearers of memory, citizens aware of their duties towards their elders and descendants. The Holocaust does not belong only to the Jews. C’est un douloureux héritage du XXe siècle. Tous les historiens en sont conscients ou devraient en être conscients. Nous avons tous l’obligation impérative de dire ce qu'il était, ne donnant pas d’explication rationnelle et irrefutable.

Allow me, first of all, to recall what we all know. Parents in particular, la famille en général jouent un rôle clé dans la transmission de la mémoire. For too long, many of us have remained silent, perhaps out of modesty, ignorance or indifference. Today, it is our duty, wherever we can and in the right circumstances, to remember with insistence the tragedies of history, of our history, to encourage nos enfants et petits-enfants à participer aux commémorations. Commemorations are not only intended for those who know. They are also and especially made for the youngest. Ils servent, il faut le dire et le répéter, à sauvegarder la mémoire, à former les esprits, à garantir l’avenir.

And then, I must insist on the responsibility of teachers. Je sais que dans certaines écoles il n’est pas facile, voire impossible de enseigner l’histoire de la Holocaust. We must not give up, neither in the first degree nor in the second degree. Our determination must not weaken. It is up to us to reconquer ce que nous appelons maintenant « les territoires perdus de la République ».

It is a task all the more formidable as the secondary education programs have something to surprise.

The teaching of history is reduced to a bare minimum in scientific classes. Why? Just because a teenager will become an engineer, a doctor or a business owner doesn’t mean he shouldn’t know the past.

The term Shoah is banned from administrative language, in favor of the word 'genocide', a too vague legal term, alas! too trivialized, which does not really reflect the specificity of the Shoah.

In addition, the teachers of the final classes are called upon to teach either "the memories of the Second World War" or "the memories of the Algerian war". Yes, by choice, as if the memories all had the same values. And the official programs specify that the memories intersect, that they oppose each other, that they fluctuate, that one is worth the other, that the memories of the victims of genocides are comparable to the memories of the prisoners of war, the former members of the STO and the "Malgré nous" Alsatians and Lorraine.

The memory of the Shoah is part of a mishmash as incomprehensible as it is unacceptable.

All in all, by questioning the memories, opposing them, criticizing them, one can also challenge the memory of the Shoah and deny the existence of the gas chambers. Under these conditions, would negationism not be part of the debate on memoirs?

It is time to reset the history programs. We must insist without complexes on the history of the nation. C’est en prenant conscience du passé national dont ils sont les héritiers que today’s young people comprendront l’importance de l’histoire. Common sense requires that chronology once again become the backbone of teaching. It is impossible to accept that we teach the history of wars in the 20th century before addressing the history of totalitarianisms. Yet this is what the official programs provide. Teachers should, accordingly, teach the history of Hitler’s Germany after dealing with the Holocaust. An absurdity! C’est une grave erreur de former des générations qui n’auront qu’une vague idée du monde dans lequel leurs grands-parents et leurs arrière-grands-parents vivaient. The citizens that we are cannot remain passive in the face of a policy of forgetting and confusion.

Fortunately, most professors do their best to avoid this absurdity. There are many who use the Shoah Memorial to complete their knowledge, to update them, to lead their students there. With the assistance of the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah, the Memorial provides essential work tools. The archives of the Centre for Contemporary Jewish Documentation, the library, meetings and colloquiums, events of all kinds, including commemorations such as today’s one, links with research centres abroad, notably with Washington and Jerusalem, these are some of the actions that give au Mémorial une place primordiale dans la recherche et l’enseignement de l’histoire, de la littérature, de la philosophie, de la sociologie.

The school trips to Auschwitz-Birkenau, some today criticize them. In their eyes, memorial tourism is another form of tourism. I read that "respecting Auschwitz means not going there anymore." Je ne suis pas inconscient qu'il y a un vrai Auschwitz Business. In Krakow, it is said, they offer, at good prices, by taxi, three hours round trip, visits to the extermination camp. Cohorts of tourists follow one another, behind busy guides, sometimes overwhelmed by the crowds. But is this a sufficient reason to waive sending high school classes there? Je ne le crois pas, sachant que ces voyages scolaires ne ressemblent pas à des pèlerinages.

Bien sûr, il y a de l’indecency, voire de l’obscenité dans ces voyages vers l'horreur. Nous partons tôt le matin de l'aéroport Charles-de-Gaulle. After two hours of flying, we arrive at Krakow. We get into brand new coaches that drive on beautiful highways. One enters Birkenau, where one discovers the ruins of the gas chambers, more or less well-maintained barracks, one listens to the guide. Then, without the slightest embarrassment, we picnic in the coaches. In the half-light of a winter afternoon, one enters les bâtiments, sinistres et sombres, d’Auschwitz. In the evening, exhausted, we take the plane back to Paris.

In less than twelve hours, we went from paradise to hell, and from hell to heaven. Under these conditions, it is impossible to imagine l’interminable voyage des déportés, les odeurs, la soif, la faim, l’angoisse, la mort dans les wagons abandonnés. Impossible d’imaginer l’atmosphère du camp, les vivants et les morts, les cris des kapos, le froid, les maladies, les sélections, cet immense cimetière sans graves.

All these criticisms are both founded and irrefutable. Il est, cependant, difficile de rester insensible face à ces sinistre miroirs de surveillance, dans ces prisons délabrées qui ont hébergé des centaines de milliers de détenus voués à la mort, devant ces ruines des chambres à gaz, devant ce tas de verres, hair, suitcases, who bear witness, in their own way, to the tragedy. Contrary à ce que prétend le poète, le sang ne sèche pas rapidement en entrant dans l’histoire.

Je peux te dire que, dans ma ville à Saint-Maur, comme dans d’autres villes, chaque année plusieurs lycées participent au voyage, avec l’aide de la municipalité et du Mémorial de la Shoah. The students return upset. They saw with their own eyes. They now know what an extermination camp was. Auschwitz, Maïdanek, Treblinka, Sobibor, Chelmno are not just names they used to read in their textbooks, unknown places that they could not locate. These are no longer images. C’est une réalité tragique qu’ils ont affrontée, même si ce n’est pas exactement celle que les déportés connaissaient. It is no longer virtual that would call on the only imagination. This vision of reality has marked them. They talk about it and they will talk about it. They will not be accessible to the lies of the coin.

C’est un cours d’histoire qui est mieux qu’une leçon donnée dans le hall d’un lycée. Especially since this visit was carefully prepared by the teachers. It is part of a project educational that has been developed over several months, which will, upon return, be the subject of new reflection. Their students will keep alive a story that, without them, would fall into oblivion, even in denial.

Yes, an increasing number of students in primary and secondary schools need to benefit from a trip to Auschwitz.

In conclusion, I would like to deliver a message of hope. The scholarly or less scholarly works on the Shoah are numerous and increasingly better documented. Cinema and literature hold a place not insignificant. Overall, we would be wrong to despair. The Shoah will not fall into the dustbin of history. Let’s not be overly optimistic, time will do its work. We will not be able, in vingt ans, en cinquante ans, à se sentir aujourd’hui blessé, et déjà notre blessure n’est pas aussi profonde que celle de nos parents. But je suis certain que nous resterons fidèles à la mémoire des déportés, que nous conserverons la mémoire des six millions qui ne sont pas revenus des camps de mort et les témoignages des survivants, que nous satisferons aux exigences de l’histoire.