Commemoration of Yom HaShoah 2018

Yvette Lévy, survivor of the Shoah, and a young girl from the Talmud-Torah of the MJLF © Michel Isaac

On the occasion of Yom HaShoah, on 11 and 12 April 2018, a 24-hour uninterrupted ceremony followed by a public reading took place on the forecourt of the Shoah Memorial, day and night, in memory of the victims of the Holocaust and the heroes of the Jewish Resistance during the Second World War.

Of the 76,000 names inscribed on the Wall of Names, were pronounced, one by one, the names of people deported from France by convoys no. 71 to 85, Jews who died in internment camps in France, executed as resistors, hostages or summarily shot (lists 90 and 91), and people deported by convoys n°1 to n°20. Some 200 people, former deportees, parents, volunteers, children... read in turn, from the lists from Serge Klarsfeld’s Deportation Memorial Book (Association of FFDJF), the names of "those whose only name remains" (Simone Veil).

We invite you to find the photos of the commemoration on our Facebook page by clicking HERE

François Heilbronn, Vice-President of the Shoah Memorial

Speech by François Heilbronn, Vice-President of the Shoah Memorial
Inaugural Yom Hashoah ceremony of Wednesday, April 11, 2018, Shoah Memorial

Ladies and Gentlemen the former deportees
Ladies and gentlemen the resistants
Ladies and Gentlemen the hidden children
Mr. Minister of State, Minister of the Interior
Mr. Minister of the Economy and Finance
Mr. Minister of National Education
Mr. Prime Minister
Madam the Secretary of State for Veterans and Remembrance
Madam the 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 the Paris Police
Sir, the Rector of the Academy of Paris
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. President of the Shoah Memorial
Mr. President of the Consistory
Madam President of the MJLF
Mr. President of the CRIF
Ladies and gentlemen the Presidents of associations of former deportees, veterans, and victims of genocide
Ladies and gentlemen, presidents of anti-racist and anti-Semitic associations
Ladies and Gentlemen Presidents of the Association
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 evoking the ceremony that brings us together and to which I thank you all for participating so faithfully each year. I would like to mention a birthday.

Almost 75 years ago, on April 28, 1943, during the full occupation of France, the ancestor of the Shoah Memorial, the Center for Contemporary Jewish Documentation, was created. On that day, 40 Jewish resistance fighters gathered in rue Bizanand in Grenoble under the impetus of Isaac Schneersohn to create what would become the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine (CDJC). In the midst of the occupation, they declare together: "we want above all to write the Great Book of the martyrologist of Judaism in France." In the heart of the Holocaust in France, in Europe and at the very moment of April 43 when the revolt of the Warsaw Ghetto raged and forced the German troops to retreat, this Committee adopted a visionary objective. Objective that allows 75 years later the holding of this ceremony, it is as follows:

"To take stock of the dispossessed or Aryanized Jewish fortune, to paint a picture of so much suffering of so many, internees, deportees, shot Jewish hostages; to bring out the heroism of the Jewish fighters... to record the attitude of the rulers, the administration, the various layers of public opinion... It is necessary to highlight everything that may have influenced the Jewish world in France in an unfavorable or favorable way... Secondly, it is necessary to prepare from now on the Cahier des revendications des Juifs de France, Jews français ou juifs étrangers.

With the Liberation of Paris, the Committee transformed into a Centre for Contemporary Jewish Documentation (CDJC) and played an essential role in collecting documents from the German and French services responsible for suppressing the 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 wish to stop there. It intends to bring together, for the first time in the world, in the same place, 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 is 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, first names, and ages. This Memorial book that gave the idea in 1990 to Rabbi Daniel Fahri of the Liberal Jewish Movement of France and to Serge Klarsfled, President of the Sons and Daughters of the Deported Jews 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 Righteous 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 the one of the Righteous among the Nations of France, rescuers of so many of you.

This reading of the names of the Jewish deportees from France lasts 24 hours. And for 24 hours we read one by one the names of those who, as Simone Veil has always reminded us: "there is only the name left".

In 24 hours we cannot read the more than 76,000 names of the 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 the reading of the names of convoys 71 to 85, then we will read the names of the Jews who died in France, in internment camps, executed as resistors, hostages or summarily shot, then we will resume our reading from convoy no. 1 to convoy no. 20.

For this inaugural ceremony of this reading, we will all read together without protocol order, the 1,500 names of convoy No. 71, leaving from the 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 old and 295 under 19 years old. Among these children, there were 34 of the 44 children arrested at Izieu’s house by Klaus Barbie on April 6, 1944, none survived.

There were also several large families. Barnett and Louise Greenberg and their 9 children aged from 4 to 19 years, only Paul, 17 years old, will return. Salomon and Clara Sephiha and their 7 children aged from 3 to 17 years old, none returned. Esther Schenkel and her five children, including a very beautiful essay 'The Unforgettable', recounted the tragic fate.

Among the 91 women and 39 men who miraculously returned from Auschwitz-Birkenau were our friend Marceline Loridan-Ivens born Rosenberg and our friend Ginette Kolinka born Cherkasky. Among the few survivors was also the great psychoanalyst Anne-Lise Stern.

And in this convoy, whose names you will read tonight, 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 his mother this evening as well as that of his aunt and grandmother. The name of Simone Jacob-Veil will resound here this evening during this reading of Yom Hashoah in this place that owes her so much, and this between her death last June 30 and her entry into the Pantheon on 1^er next July.

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 was also a survivor and tireless activist for memory, Mr. Henri Borlant. Henri Borlant arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau at the age of 15 and a month, he survived 33 months in camps, he is one of the youngest French survivors. Then we will start 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 Liberal Jewish Movement of France, the Shoah Memorial and the Consistory.

Especially thank all the Yom Hashoah teams, mainly the members of the MJLF who prepared this uninterrupted reading and who will keep vigil without stopping for 24 hours to its proper functioning.

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 totally different but nevertheless I would like to read here, this evening, the names of the twelve French Jews murdered in France since 2003 solely for being Jewish.

Twelve French Jews victims of age-old prejudices, antisemitic hatred and for eight of them 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.