In the footsteps of the deported and disappeared parents at Auschwitz-Birkenau
As part of the discussion group of former hidden children of the Georges Devereux Center / Memorial of the Shoah, and at the express request of some orphans of the Shoah who had never dared to travel before, a visit in the footsteps of the parents disappeared at Auschwitz-Birkenau was organized by the Shoah Memorial on 28, 29 and 30 October 2018. This project was supported by the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah.
About twenty people participated in this memory trip, among them: orphans of the Shoah, participants in the hidden children’s speech group, the clinical psychologists of the psychological assistance unit for survivors and their relatives at the Centre Georges Devereux Nathalie Zajde, Catherine Grandsard and Audrey Aboab, the historian specializing in places of memory of the Shoah Memorial Olivier Lalieu, the Chief Rabbi Olivier Kaufmann and the doctor Dr. Olivier Saint-Jean. This trip was filmed by a filmmaker in order to keep a video archive of this event. Designed by clinical psychologists specialized in ethnopsychiatry, it had three distinct and complementary aspects:
1. Know the places of destruction of parents and families murdered in the Holocaust: visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
2. Exchange, be supported psychologically during the entire trip. A first group meeting was held the day before the camp visit and a second one was held in the evening after the visit. These meetings brought together all the participants in the trip.
3. To meditate, to think of the murdered relatives, to name them at the places of their destruction, to participate in Jewish prayers for the repose of the souls of the disappeared and for the strengthening of the living.
© Marc Grandsard
Following in the footsteps of loved ones who died in the Shoah, finding oneself for the first time at the places where the relatives disappeared between 1942 and 1945, is a singular experience that the speaking group allowed to be carried out.
