Yom HaShoah 2019

Some 200 people, former deportees, parents, volunteers, children... took turns reading, from the lists taken from Serge Klarsfeld’s Memorial Deportation Book (published by the Association of FFDJF), the names of "those whose only name remains" (Simone Veil).

Speech by François Heilbronn, Vice-President of the Shoah Memorial

Yom Hashoah inaugural ceremony of Wednesday, May 1, 2019, Shoah Memorial

Ladies and Gentlemen, the former deportees
Ladies and Gentlemen, the former resistance fighters
Ladies and Gentlemen, the hidden children
Mr. President of the National Assembly
Minister of National Education
Madam Secretary of State for Veterans and Remembrance
Madam Mayor of Paris
Madam and Sir, the Ambassadors of Israel and Germany in France
Ladies and Gentlemen, Senators and Deputies
Ladies and gentlemen, mayors
Mr. Interministerial Delegate of the DILCRAH
Sir, the Rector of the Paris Academy
Mr. the Prefect representing the Paris Police Prefect
Mr. the Chief Rabbi of France
Mr. Pastor, President of the Protestant Federation of France
Monseigneur l'Auxiliaire de Paris
Mr. Imam of Drancy
Mr. the Grand Master of the Great East of France
Gentlemen the Great Rabbis
Ladies and Gentlemen, representatives of the Religions
Mr. President of the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah
Mr. the President of the Shoah Memorial
Mr. the President of the Consistory
Mr. President of the MJLF
Mr. President of the CRIF
Mr. President of the United Jewish Social Fund
Mr. President of the IBUKA Association
Ladies and Gentlemen, Presidents of associations of former deportees
combatants, victims of genocide and places of remembrance
Ladies and gentlemen, the presidents of anti-racist and anti-Semitic associations
Ladies and gentlemen, presidents of associations and youth movements
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 memory of the Jews murdered and victims of the genocide in Europe between 1939 and 1945, 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.

This reading of the names of 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:
"Only the name remains."

In 24 hours we cannot read the more than 76,000 names of Jews deported from France.
This year we will read 31,761, including those of 5,921 children. To continue our reading interrupted last year at the end of convoy no. 20, we will resume reading the names, from convoys 21 to 57.

For the inaugural ceremony of this reading, we will all read together, without formal order, the 1,012 names of convoy no. 21, which left from Le Bourget-Dancy station more than 76 years ago, on 19 August 1942.

Before starting our reading, I wanted to evoke for you the history of this convoy, emblematic of the genocidal objective of the Nazi occupier but also of the criminal servility of the French authorities and administration.

This convoy No. 21 is mainly composed of children under twelve years old who were rounded up during the Vel d'Hiv roundup on 16 and 17 July 1942, and since then have often been kept alone, after their parents' deportations, by French gendarmes in the camps of Loiret de Pithiviers and Beaune La Rolande. This convoy was also composed of the Jews arrested and kept in detention by the Vichy government in the camps of the free zone and handed over to the occupation authorities. They will mainly come from the Camp des Milles near Aix-en-Provence and from the Vernet in Ariège near Pamiers.

The choice of these deportees was made after negotiations between the French and German authorities at the beginning of July 1942.

During the meeting on 13 August 1942, between Röthke, who replaced Dannecker as head of the Jewish affairs department, his deputy Heinrichsohn and the delegate in the occupied zone of the secretary general of the police, Jean Leguay, as well as his chief of staff, Thomas Saults, it was agreed there that convoys could not, under any circumstances, be filled exclusively with children.

In order to avoid this, the children had to be deported with the Jews brought to the camp of Drancy from the non-occupied area.

A ratio of 300 adults to 500 children was established. Leguay indicated that he would ensure the arrival of a sufficient number of Jews from the non-occupied area to comply with this request.

The convoy of 19 August 1942 thus included 448 children under eighteen years old, but above all 401 children under twelve years old, yes, less than twelve years old who had been transferred to the Drancy camp on 15 August from the camps at Beaune-la-Rolande and Pithiviers. But also, one hundred and seventy Jews already interned in Drancy, including some parents who volunteered in the too often illusory hope of finding their children. The nearly 400 other adults completing the convoy’s strength had been transferred by the French authorities in the previous week from the camps of Milles and Vernet from the unoccupied zone.

Röthke confirms the departure of this convoy designated 901-16 from the Le Bourget-Drancy station on 19 August at precisely 8:55 am, with 1,000 Jews on board. They will actually be 1,012.

Some wagons will be almost entirely made up of children under twelve years old.
Allow me to cite as an example, car no. 1, taken from the Memorial of the Deportation of the Jews of France by Serge Klarsfeld:
«Wagon 1: 49 children and 9 adults. Among the children, many brothers and sisters... Lucien
Najman 6 years old, Thérèse Najman 4 years old, Bernard Najman 2 years old.

Then a little further we read "Anna Helfmann 9 years and her sister Denise 4 years".

Benjamin Rapoport, who had been interned at the Vernet camp since 1940 because he was German and then handed over by the French to the Nazis, was one of the five survivors of this convoy, yes 5 out of 1,012 deportees. He will testify to this trip and will talk about the children:

«In one of the stations, we saw them at the platform. We could hear cries and tears. Then, a guard half-opened the sliding door of our wagon to see what was happening inside. Then I saw an almost empty, dark station, and a few children coming out of a cattle car to be transferred into another; they walked crying between the SS men who pressed them, but who let them drink at the station pump; you could see that they were dying of thirst."

Upon their arrival at Auschwitz, 138 men and 45 women were selected for forced labor. The 829 other deportees were gassed upon their arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau, including all 401 children, yes, all those under twelve years of age.

These are the names of those 1,012 Jewish deportees from France that we will read at this Yom Hashoah inauguration ceremony. During the reading by each of you of these names, we will show a photo of the deported person, if available.

To date, we have 20,300 photographs that were collected by the Shoah Memorial and Serge Klarsfeld, including 4. 700 photos of children, all visible in the Children’s Memorial which is dedicated to them at the end of the permanent exhibition of the Memorial. I invite you during the next 24 hours to drop us off if you have any photos of the deported members of your families, as part of our "Un visage, un nom" operation.

After reading this particularly tragic convoy, I will invite readers to go to the Children’s Memorial to reflect on the faces of the children whose names they have read. Then go before the Wall of Names in 1942, and meditate on the names you may have read.

I also invite all our readers and all families to go during these 24 hours to the Wall of Names, because it will be closed for construction at the end of Yom Hashoah until the beginning of 2020.

Indeed, since its inauguration by President Chirac and Simone Veil on 25 January 2005, the Memorial teams have collected from families corrections of names, surnames, age, spelling or even deportation. Inaccuracies thus found in the original lists of convoys established by the Germans. We were thus able to make more than 1,823 corrections on the more than 76,000 names of Jews deported from France and add 175 missing names. The Wall will therefore be closed for a complete renovation over several months.

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 rescued, Mrs. Esther Senot, one of our tireless Memory activists who tirelessly testifies with young people and whom we thank.

Esther was deported in September 1943 at the age of 15 by convoy 59. I will let her mention it for us.

Then we will begin the reading of the names of convoy 21, where 100 political, diplomatic, religious, and associative figures without formal order will read the 1,012 names of convoy no. 21.

Esther Senot will begin this reading, followed as every year by Serge Klarsfeld in tribute to her work and that of the Sons and Daughters of the Jewish Deportees of France, tireless work that has made it possible to restore a name, a memory, sometimes a face to each of these deportees. The reading of convoy 21 will be closed by Mrs. Beate Klarsfeld.

This official ceremony should end around 8:30 p.m. We will then mark a very short break to allow our guests who wish to leave us. We will then resume the uninterrupted reading by continuing with convoy no. 22, then for 24 hours until convoy 57, we will read continuously the names of the Jewish deportees from France until tomorrow at 7:00 p.m. This reading will be broadcast entirely on the website of the Shoah Memorial.

Children from middle and high schools will take part in these readings, as well as nearly 400 families who took it upon themselves to read the names of their deported loved ones.

In parallel with this uninterrupted reading, there will be several important ceremonies and meetings at the Memorial.
Tonight at 9:00 p.m., the Éclaireuses et Éclaireurs israélites de France will screen a documentary "Opa" by Simon Maller in the auditorium

Tomorrow, Thursday, May 2nd:

• At 7:45 a.m.: A service will be celebrated by the rabbis of the Séminaire Israélite de France, followed by the reading of the Kaddish organized by the Consistory in the Crypt;
• At 11 a.m., we will pay tribute to our friend and survivor Maxi Librati, who died a month ago with the screening of "Maxi, 145922, a round trip"
• At 2:30 p.m., a meeting on the occasion of the publication of "A Jewish Hero of Our Time. 1945 Yiddish Manuscript" by Maurice Wolman,
• At 4:30 pm, the reading of Sefer HaShoah;
• At 7 p.m., the final Kaddish reading.

Then there will be a solemn Office of the Consistory of Paris at 7:30 pm at the Synagogue des Tournelles (21 bis, rue des Tournelles), in the presence of religious, civil and military authorities.

I would like to thank the initiator and designer of this ceremony, Rabbi Daniel Farhi from the MJLF, as well as Serge Klarsfeld. Thank the MJLF and all those activists who organize so well and in such a dedicated way, every year for 28 years this uninterrupted reading of names.

Thank the Shoah Memorial, its President, its Director and the teams that welcome us. Also thank the Consistory, its President, the Chief Rabbi of France for their active participation in this time of union of the French Jews. Finally, thank the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah, its President, its Director and its teams for their unwavering support for this ceremony every year.

Finally, to particularly thank all the Yom Hashoah teams, especially the members of the MJLF and the Memorial teams who have prepared this uninterrupted reading and who will keep watch without stopping for 24 hours to ensure its smooth running.

Finally, I would like to conclude by paying a last tribute to our friends who survived the Shoah, tireless witnesses for the younger generations in their fight against racist and anti-Semitic hatreds, and who have passed away since our last commemoration.

I would like to recall the memory of Marceline Loridan-Ivens, Ida Grinspan, Maxi Librati, Noah Klieger, Charles Testyler, André Berkover, Ady Fuchs, Maurice and Joseph Jablonski, Charlotte Wardi,

I would like to recall the memory of one of the leaders of the Jewish Resistance and the OSE, who saved more than 350 Jewish children, Georges Loinger, who also passed away this year at 108 years old.

Also honor the activists of the memory of the sons and daughters who have left us this year: Maurice Lippe, Georges Wojakowski and Gabrielle Balseiro.

Finally, pay tribute to the man who bequeathed us a name, SHOAH, and a masterful work, Claude Lanzmann.

Thank you

François Heilbronn
President of the Yom Hashoah Commission

Yom Hashoah 2019 in pictures

© Shoah Memorial / Michel Isaac