I’ll Come Back – a film by Jean Barat

Sunday 17 May 2020Thursday 24 May 2020

from 17 to 24 May 2020, Le Mémorial de la Shoah invites you to see or revisit

“I’ll Come Back”

I Will Return by Jean Barat, 2015, France, 1h07, documentary, produced by J.W Production – Jacques Wenig & Injam Production – Marc Andréani.

Synopsis:

In May 1941, aged 28, Zysman Wenig is arrested in Paris by the French police for being a Jew and interned at the Pithiviers camp. On 25 June 1942, he was deported to the Auschwitz camp. 70 years later, he recounts how he managed to survive four years of internment and deportation. This documentary focuses on the conditions of this survival and on the view of a 100-year-old man who looks back at his own destiny and that of his family, leading him to experience one of the greatest tragedies of humanity.

With the participation of the National Center for Cinema and Animated Image and the support of the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah.

Historical Advisor: Annette Wieviorka

Voiceover: Carlo Brandt

Music by Jean-Noël Yven

About Zysman Wenig

Legend Little family in 1946, Khayé and Zysman with their children Jacques born in 1936 and Roger born in 1940.
Credit: Memorial de la Shoah/coll. Jacques Wenig

Zysman Wenig was born in Poland on 15 January 1913 in Kònskie near Lodz. The youngest of seven children, his mother and father died prematurely. In 1931, Zysman left Poland to join his older sister, Sarah, who moved to Paris in the 1920s. He was 17 years old.
Sarah and her husband Moshe have 5 children. Zysman, barely older than the eldest son, joins the family home in the Marais district and works as a tailor.
On 30 June 1936, he married Khayè Grundman, the sister of Moshe. They had two sons, Jacques born in 1936 and Roger born in 1940.

During the Occupation, Zysman Wenig was arrested on 14 May 1941 during the so-called «Green Ticket» raid and then interned in the camp of Pithiviers. He manages to maintain an often clandestine correspondence with his wife.
On 25 June 1942, Zysman Wenig was deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in convoy no. 4 and received the number 42.695. He is assigned to a command of carpentry.
Transferred on 18 January 1945 during the “marches of death” to the Mauthausen camp and then to the Ebensee camp, Zysman Wenig was released on 6 May 1945 and repatriated to Paris on 24 May 1945 where he met up with his wife and children who had escaped arrest.

Also to discover: Zysman Wenig, Lettres à Khayè. Correspondance clandestine d'un amour en temps de guerre, Calmann-Lévy, 2017.

http://jereviendrai-lefilm.com/

A few words from Jean Barat, director