The transmission of the memory of deportation
by the children TO their children
Hugo Pauillac -
Léa Asman
Henri Sampson
II- What memory of the Shoah were they given?
Irène Sapir
Claude Sampson
III- Why this concern to testify?
Irène Sapir
Claude Sampson
During the Second World War (1939-1945), more than five million people were deported: Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, political opponents of the Nazi regime; there were also thousands of men, women, uncles, aunts, and grandparents... They suffered the humiliation and rigor of the camps, whether they were for concentration, labor or extermination. But, despite the many abuses inflicted on them, some survived. The testimony they gave reflects the horror against which they fought day after day.
But what about what they told their children? How do you explain the absence of a father, the reason why one had to hide one’s child, this number tattooed on the arm? To answer these questions, we asked two children of deportees, Irène Sapir, whose mother Léa Asman was deported to Auschwitz and Claude Sampson, whose father Henri Sampson was deported to the Langenstein labor camp, to share their personal stories with us. We were confronted with two different conceptions of the memory of deportation.
It was also asked to these representatives of the "second generation" if they had the desire to pass on this memorial heritage to young people.
We were welcomed by Irène Sapir on Monday, May 2, 2005, and met with Claude Sampson on Friday, May 6, 2005.
Irène Bibergal and her mother Léa Asman, who lived in the suburbs of Paris at the time of the war, were both arrested on 16 July 1942 during the so-called "Vel d'Hiv" raffle because they were of Jewish origin although not practicing. The father, then engaged in the French army, had been arrested by the Wehrmacht during the debacle of 1940 and was held in a prison near Dresden. The status of prisoner-of-war woman led to Léa Asman and her daughter being released 48 hours after their arrest. From then on, the decision was made to hide Irene, then five years old, with family friends in Compiègne. Léa Asman was arrested again in March 1943, then taken first to Drancy before being deported to the Auschwitz camp.
Within her foster family, Irene integrated quite quickly despite her fear towards the other children of the family. She finally found her parents in the summer of 1945.
Henri Sampson, of English origin, was arrested on 4 January 1944 in a train at Bayonne, following a denunciation. Considered a terrorist by the Nazi occupier, he was sent to the fort of Hâ de Bordeaux where he remained until 29 March. He was transferred to the Compiègne detention camp and did not leave until 27 April 1945 in a convoy bound for Auschwitz-Birkenau. Arrived on 30 April 1944 after an exhausting journey, he was shaved and tattooed there. He now carried the number 186378. After being taken back to Buchenwald on 14 May 1945, he was sent to the Langenstein labor camp for the construction of underground galleries for the manufacture of V2 missiles. He served as a locksmith-boilermaker, which he called "quiet" Kommando. He escaped on April 21, 1945 at nine o'clock from a forced march where 2,500 people died. He returned to Paris on June 4, 1945.
Beyond these family dramas lies a memory of the deportation that many former deportees maintain "so that we do not forget", according to their words.
II - What memory of the Shoah were they given?
Léa Asman returned from the camps weakened both physically and morally. Until the end of her life, she suffered from the aftermath of her deportation, so that she did not exercise any profession after the war. Her husband, a prisoner of war, lived well during his detention; he also made several escape attempts with his French comrades.
For Irène Sapir, there was a great freedom of speech at home, so her parents told her anecdotes and explained their stories to her as soon as she turned eight. She remembers mostly amusing anecdotes from her father or funny situations that her mother had experienced during her deportation. This may seem paradoxical for us who only know the history of the camps through dramatic narratives... it also surprised us a lot. Its young age may explain that one sought to minimize the atrocities of war. However, the psychological state of her mother was there to remind her of the fate she suffered at Auschwitz.
Irene always knew what happened while she was hidden, even the reasons that led her to leave her mother in 1943. Moreover, she continued to visit her foster family long after the war, showing her deep gratitude since her early childhood. The fact that she was born before the war and that she had been hidden gave her the role of witness. If she had been born after the war, no doubt she would not have known in detail the dramatic events related to the deportation in her family. However, the freedom of speech reigning within his family allowed him to assume his past and gave him an ease to address the subject of the Holocaust. Above all, his parents conveyed to him the respect of men, the respect for differences and minorities. His commitment to the fight against racism was therefore passed on to him by his parents.
Henri Sampson, for his part, has locked himself in a profound mutism towards his son. His son, Claude, whom we met when he was born in March 1939, could not have concrete memories of the Second World War. Only the feeling of resentment seems to have marked his mind. Indeed, during the interview, Claude Sampson testified to us his resentment towards the Germans, whom he "will never forgive", according to his words.
It was not until the death of her father, in 1992, that her mother began a huge work of gathering documents, letters from her husband when he was detained in Compiègne and books about the Langenstein Lager. Claude Sampson recovered these documents when his mother died in 2000, a way for him to reclaim the memory of this father who did not speak. This unknown part of his father’s life provokes in him a kind of perpetual commemoration, since he continues to make an annual trip to Germany in the footsteps of his father, and still lives in the shadow of "dad" as he has told us many times. However, it seems that his father wanted the "rehabilitation of the 4,500 political deportees from Auschwitz" who led his father to the camps in Germany. Claude Sampson insisted that there was not enough talk about the fate of political opponents and "that too much was done for the Jewish deportees". Also the political and moral opinions of our interlocutor did not allow us to further exploit the issue of the transmission of memory.
III - WHY IS THIS CONCERN TO TESTIFY?
Irène Sapir participates locally in the transmission of the memory of the deportation through meetings with young people in high schools and colleges. However, she has only been involved in this mission for a few years, as she was only recently contacted by a local association of deportees to ensure these public meetings. Former schoolteacher, one can undoubtedly think that she shared her testimony with children. If Irène agrees to tell the story of her family history, it is because she believes that our society still has dangerous excesses, especially in terms of racism, since she believes, for example, that people of Maghrebi origin are now persecuted, a bit like the Jews more than sixty years ago. She hopes to help show the folly of men that leads to the unimaginable so that, collectively, we become aware of the danger of intolerance. Irène Sapir wants to bear witness, above all so that we don’t forget... The story of her family is told in a book entitled
Claude Sampson has never shared his family history, because he never dared to take the necessary steps. However, he was recently contacted by a newspaper to testify; and since then, he has been at the disposal of teachers to tell young people about the deportation.
The experience of the parents deeply influenced the "second generation" who carry the heavy burden of the memory of the deportation, with the feeling of having to tell the younger generations so that the world does not forget what happened not so long ago. It appeared to us that it was important for parents to tell their children, otherwise a part of their identity is poorly lived and difficult to accept. The silence of the deportees is not a generalized fact since many of them are engaged in testimonies, and this for a long time like the literary production of Primo Lévi. More recently, people like Velibor Colic have come forward to show the rest of the world the cruelty of distant and unmediated wars.
We would like to thank Irène Sapir and Claude Sampson for the quality of their welcome, for having given us their time and for providing us with documentation.