c Shoah Memorial/coll. Joseph Schwartz. Joseph on the right with Paul, his little brother
Joseph Schwartz (born Szwarc) was born on February 18, 1927, at the Rothschild Hospital, in the 12th
Joseph’s testimony accounts for all the privations and humiliations imposed on the Jews of France during the Second World War. He notably evoked with intact strength the loss of his family’s French nationality in 1941, the appointment of a provisional administrator for the paternal metal recovery company, the disconnection of the telephone line, the confiscation of the family radio and its bike, the imposition of the port of the yellow star.
On 15 July, the family was warned of an imminent roundup. Thinking that only the men would be arrested, Joseph, 15 years old, is hidden with friends of his parents in Choisy-le-Roi. His father takes refuge in the garage of his company, adjacent to their pavilion. Only Ruchla and Paul stay in the family home, 25 rue de la Vistule in the 13
Shoah Memorial/coll. Joseph Schwartz.
Joseph with his parents and little brother Paul, murdered at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp.
Arrested in his turn a few hours later, he manages to escape thanks to the complacency of a police officer.
The whole family was transferred to the camp of Beaune-la-Rolande and then deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau; Lejbus, aged 45, and Ruchla, aged 37, by convoy 15 on 5 August 1942 and Paul, by convoy 22 on 21 August 1942. Paul and his mother were gassed upon their arrival. According to the testimony of a survivor, Lejbus was shot dead shortly before liberation.
Joseph, unaware of the fate of his family, is taken in by his grandmother and then goes to the southern zone. He joined a group of FTP-MOI resistance fighters in Lyon, then returned to Paris where he participated in the liberation of the capital. It is only at the end of the war, after having spent days in the Hotel Lutetia, that he understands that neither his parents nor his brother will return from the camps.
Joseph will never recover from the loss of his family. Discovering the Memorial of the deportation of the Jews of France by Serge Klarsfeld, he learned decades later the fate of his parents, his brother, his grandmother, arrested in February 1943, his aunts and his cousins, all deported and murdered.
Shoah Memorial/coll. Joseph Schwartz
Joseph, an early activist alongside Serge Klarsfeld.
On the right in the photo, wearing dark glasses.
In 1979, he met Serge Klarsfeld. Begins an uninterrupted companionship within the Sons and Daughters of the Jewish deportees from France as well as a deep and unwavering friendship.
Shoah Memorial/coll. Joseph Schwartz.
Demonstration by activists of the Association des Fils et filles des déportés juifs de France, on the site of the Pithiviers camp (Loiret), to remember the fate of thousands of Jewish children rounded up at the Vel d'hiv, 13 May 1990.
His speech at the national ceremony commemorating the Vel d'Hiv roundup in July 2021 will have a wide impact. Then aged 94, Joseph expresses all his revolt and his emotion in the face of the diverted images of the yellow star that are circulating at the time to denounce the vaccination against covid.
The Shoah Memorial paid tribute to him as part of Yom HaShoah in April 2025, on the occasion of the release of
Joseph Schwartz is a Knight of the Legion of Honor.
The Shoah Memorial offers its most sincere condolences to his wife and family. He salutes the memory of a great activist for memory, faithful supporter of the Shoah Memorial.
