Yvette Lévy, a Shoah survivor, and a young girl from the MJLF’s Talmud-Torah © Michel Isaac
On the occasion of
Of the
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François Heilbronn, Vice-President of the Shoah Memorial
Speech by François Heilbronn, Vice-President of the Shoah Memorial
Yom Hashoah inaugural ceremony of Wednesday, April 11, 2018, Shoah Memorial
Ladies and Gentlemen, the former deportees
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Resistance
Ladies and Gentlemen, the hidden children
Mr. the Minister of State, Minister of the Interior
Mr. the Minister of the Economy and Finance
Minister of National Education
Mr. the Prime Minister
Madam Secretary of State for Veterans and Remembrance
Madam Mayor of Paris
Madam the Director-General of UNESCO
Distinguished Ambassadors of Austria, the United States, France, Israel and Poland
Ladies and Gentlemen, Senators and Deputies
Ladies and gentlemen, mayors
Mr. the Prefect of Police of Paris
Sir, the Rector of the Paris Academy
My lords, the Archbishops of Marseille and Paris
Mr. the Chief Rabbi of France
Mr. Pastor, President of the Protestant Federation of France
Mr. Imam of Drancy
Ladies and Gentlemen, representatives of the Religions
Mr. President of the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah
Mr. the President of the Shoah Memorial
Mr. the President of the Consistory
Madam President of the MJLF
Mr. President of the CRIF
Ladies and Gentlemen, Presidents of associations of former deportees, veterans and victims of genocide
Ladies and gentlemen, the presidents of anti-racist and anti-Semitic associations
Ladies and Gentlemen, Presidents of the Associations
Mr. and Mrs. Serge Klarsfeld and the sons and daughters of the Jewish deportees from France
Dear children of the Talmud Torah of the MJLF
Dear friends
On this day of Yom Hashoah, the day chosen by the State of Israel to commemorate the Jewish martyrs of the genocide but also the heroes of the Jewish resistance, We are all gathered at the Shoah Memorial to read one by one the names of the Jews deported from France as well as those who died in captivity or were murdered in France between 1941 and 1944.
But before I mention the ceremony that brings us together and to which I thank you all for participating so faithfully every year. I would like to mention an anniversary.
Almost 75 years ago, on 28 April 1943 during the occupation of France, the forerunner of the Shoah Memorial, the Centre for Contemporary Jewish Documentation, was created. On that day, 40 Jewish resistance fighters gathered in the rue Vosges and in Grenoble at the instigation of Isaac Schneersohn to create what would become the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine (CDJC). In the midst of the occupation, they declared together: "we want above all to write the Grand livre du martyrologue du judaïsme de France". In the heart of the Holocaust in France, in Europe and at the very moment in this month of April 43 when the revolt of the Warsaw Ghetto raged and forced the German troops to retreat, this Committee adopted a visionary objective. The objective that allows this ceremony to be held 75 years later is as follows:
"To take stock of the dispossessed or Aryanized Jewish fortune, to paint a picture of so much suffering, of internees, deportees, shot Jewish hostages; to bring out the heroism of the Jewish fighters... to record the attitude of those in power, the administration, and the various layers of public opinion... We must highlight everything that may have influenced the Jewish world in France, from an adverse or favourable point of view... Secondly, it is already necessary to prepare the Cahier des revendications des Juifs de France, juifs français ou juifs étrangers.
At the Liberation of Paris, the Committee transformed itself into a Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine (CDJC) and played an essential role in collecting documents from German and French services responsible for suppressing Jews, including the lists of deportation convoys that we will read during these 24 hours.
Equipped with an innovative vision for the time, Schneerson does not want to stop there. It intends to bring together, for the first time in the world, in the same place, not only archives but also a library, a research center, exhibitions and above all, a "Memorial". The first stone of the "Tomb of the Unknown Jewish Martyr" was laid in May 1953. And the Memorial as we know it today was inaugurated on 30 October 1956, five years before Yad Vashem.
It was at the CDJC that Serge Klarsfeld found the lists of Jews deported from France which allowed him to publish in 1978 his magisterial "Memorial of the deportation of the Jews of France". This book that allowed us to build the Wall of Names in 2005. Wall that we have undertaken to renovate and complete for 2020 by correcting certain errors in names, surnames, and ages. This book, Memorial, which gave the idea in 1990 to Rabbi Daniel Fahri of the Mouvement Juif Libéral de France and to Serge Klarsfled, President of the Sons and Daughters of the Jewish Deportees of France, to organize this uninterrupted reading for 24 hours on this day of Yom Hashoah of the names of the Jews deported from France. In 2006, the Wall of the Just came to complete the Wall of Names.
And symbolically this evening we stand gathered in this square between these two walls, that of the martyrs and heroes like that of the Righteous among the Nations of France, rescuers of so many of you.
This reading of the names of Jewish deportees from France lasts 24 hours. And for 24 hours we read one by one the names of those who, as Simone Veil always reminded us: "only the name remains."
In 24 hours we cannot read the more than 76,000 names of Jews deported from France. This year we will read 33,500, including those of 4,093 children. To continue our reading interrupted last year at the end of convoy no. 70, we will resume reading the names of convoys 71 to 85, then we will read the names of the Jews who died in France, in internment camps, were executed as resistants, hostages, or summarily shot, then we will resume our reading of convoy no. 1 to convoy no. 20.
For this inaugural ceremony of this reading, we will all read together, without formal order, the 1,500 names of convoy no. 71, which left from Bobigny station almost 74 years ago, on April 13, 1944.
In this convoy, there were 624 men and 854 women and among them 148 children under 12 years of age and 295 under 19. Among these children, there were 34 of the 44 children arrested at the house of Izieu by Klaus Barbie on 6 April 1944, none survived.
There were also several large families. Barnett and Louise Greenberg and their 9 children aged 4 to 19, only Paul, 17, will return. Solomon and Clara Sephiha and their 7 children aged 3 to 17, none returned. Esther Schenkel and her five children, including a very beautiful essay "Les inoubliables", recounted their tragic fate.
Among the 91 women and 39 men who miraculously returned from Auschwitz-Birkenau were our friend Marceline Loridan-Ivens née Rosenberg and our friend Ginette Kolinka née Cherkasky. Among the few survivors, there was also the great psychoanalyst Anne-Lise Stern.
And in this convoy, whose names you will read tonight by chance, were also Yvonne Jacob and two of her daughters, Madeleine and Simone. Simone Jacob, who became Simone Veil. Her son Jean Veil will read the name of her mother tonight as well as that of her aunt and grandmother. The name of Simone Jacob-Veil will be heard here tonight during this reading of Yom Hashoah in this place that owes her so much, and this between her death on June 30th and her entrance into the Pantheon on the 1st
During our ceremony, after 6 survivors of the death camps accompanied by 6 young children from the Talmud-Torah of the MJLF, will light the 6 candles of remembrance in memory of the 6 million Jews murdered in Europe, we will listen to the testimony of one of our friends who also survived and is a tireless activist for Memory, Mr. Henri Borlant. Henri Borlant arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau at the age of 15 years and one month, he survived 33 months in camps, he is one of the youngest French survivors. Then we will begin reading the names of convoy 71.
I would like to thank all the organizers of this ceremony, the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah, the Mouvement Juif Libéral de France, the Shoah Memorial and the Consistory.
Especially thank all the Yom Hashoah teams, mainly the members of the MJLF who have prepared this uninterrupted reading and who will keep watch without stopping for 24 hours to ensure its smooth running.
Finally, by way of conclusion and tribute, I would like to read 12 other names this evening in front of you. Twelve names from our contemporaries.
The times are no longer the same, the political contexts are completely different but nevertheless I would like to read here tonight the names of the twelve French Jews murdered in France since 2003 for the sole reason of being Jewish.
Twelve French Jews are victims of secular prejudice, anti-Semitic hatred and eight of them of Islamist radicalism.
Sébastien Selam
Ilan Halimi
Myriam Monsonego
Jonathan Sandler
Arié Sandler
Gabriel Sandler
Philippe Braham
Yohan Cohen
Yoav Hattab
François-Michel Saada
Sarah Halimi
Mireille Knoll
Thank you.
