One of those children, who had survived Buchenwald and is today a leading light among Jewish intellectuals, Izio Rosenmann, gave a testimony that moved the audience deeply. He paid tribute not only to the institutions which had welcomed the young survivors and to all those who had worked in them, but also to the French State which had helped a large number of children to reconstruct their lives after the war. For Izio Rosenman, one of the lessons to be drawn from this page of history is the duty to be vigilant, with the moral obligation to defend children who are suffering wherever they may be in the world.
The saving of Jewish children was also at the heart of the speech by Pastor Florence Taubmann, who chairs France’s Jewish-Christian Friendship Association. She spoke of the ties between religious authorities, who were hostile to the spoliation and deportation policy of the French State, and the Resistance networks. Florence Taubmann referred to the conscience which had caused many French men and women in occupied France to act in solidarity with Jews.
Ms Taubmann was followed by the young winner of the National Deportation and Resistance Competition, Abderaouf Zerarka, who, together with six of his fellow pupils from a Parisian middle school, had written an essay on former deportee Ida Grynspan, who was also present. “Our future behaviour as adults", he said, "depends on how we have been raised and on how we learn to relate to the Other, whatever the colour of their skin, their origin or their faith.”
Richard Prasquier spoke of “the shame that we must all accept. All, except the victims and children of the victims (…) with the exception of the heroes and the Righteous.” He spoke of “our country’s civil contract” that needs to be respected by any group. For Richard Prasquier, French citizenship means shared aspirations driven by the lessons of a shared history. As a French citizen he expressed his natural feeling of belonging to the Jewish people for whom Israel is the historic territory. He spoke of the silence shrouding the massacres and deportations of Jews in Europe. But also the silence surrounding those who had survived the camps. A silence that must be broken at all costs and all the more when speaking of a crime committed three years ago against a young man who was tortured and murdered. “He was a Jew,” said Richard Prasquier, stigmatising the anti-Semitic prejudice that is present in our country’s deprived estates: “This commemoration is meaningless unless we think about these issues today.”
In conclusion, the floor was given to the new Junior Minister for War Veterans’ Affairs, Mr Hubert Falco who, while condemning the behaviour of the police forces loyal to the wartime Vichy government, also spoke of the civil servants who had worked to avoid some of the deportations. Echoing Izio Rosenman’s testimony, he said: “Today, we think of the destiny of all the children who remained alone, left to their own devices to learn to survive, while their parents were taken away to the final solution.” In conclusion, he said: “To all the Righteous, to their families, I want to say that France will never forget what they did, I want to say that France will never forget their expression of humanity.”
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