Michel Drucker’s season has just ended with Roll on Sunday. After a special broadcast dedicated to Salvatore Adamo’s 80th birthday on June 16, 2024, the flagship presenter of France Télévisions concluded his year with an issue around the Tour de France in very good company (Laurent Luyat, Marion Rousse, Laurent Jalabert, Nicolas Geay , Christian Prudhomme, Thomas Voeckler…). Before returning to the 2024 school year, Michel Drucker appears briefly in the fascinating documentary Dim Story, the silence of the paintings, broadcast on LCP this Wednesday June 26, 2024 at 8:30 p.m. A portrait of the creator of the Dim brand, Bernard Giberstein, taken by his son Daniel. A great friend of Michel Drucker. The host tells us everything about this special relationship.
Télé-Loisirs: Could you come back to your meeting with Daniel Giberstein?
Michel Drucker: This meeting had to happen one day. It was a little over 20 years ago. I did not know then that his mother, Sarah, had known my father, a doctor interned in Drancy and Compiègne. He called me one day to suggest that we meet, because his mother often saw me on television and had things to tell me. When I arrived at her house, my father’s portrait was on the bedside table. I was upset. I knew that my father had saved her from deportation by sending her to the Rothschild hospital. He had claimed an illness that she did not have. The Germans were afraid of diseases and viruses. My father and his mother had a very affectionate relationship. It was very moving. Our relationship with Daniel was born like that, it is now a brotherly friendship. He is part of my life.
Michel Drucker about Dim Story: “It’s a film about a man with a heroic past and an incredible inventor”
Did you know the fate of his father, Bernard Giberstein?
I then discovered that his father was the creator of DIM. He had built an incredible empire. I knew nothing about this man from Poland, one of the most anti-Semitic countries at the time, who wanted to be an agricultural engineer, who came to Belgium to study, which saved his life… He didn’t never recovered from the death of his entire family during the war. It was the tragedy of his life. He didn’t talk about it much, hence the subtitle The silence of the paintings. My father was the same, he escaped the sealed wagons. Daniel only discovered later his father’s past as a Resistance hero, who had smuggled dozens of Jewish families to Switzerland. It is both a film about a man with a heroic past and an inventor who built an incredible empire, before committing suicide at the age of 59. He left with his sorrows and his secrets. He had never gotten over the disappearance of the entire family.
How involved were you in the documentary?
Daniel asked me to help him make this film. We talked a lot. I suggested Francis Huster, who is of Polish origin, to play the voice of the documentary. I became a bit of Daniel’s press secretary. I supported Daniel in making this documentary and introduced people to him. We went everywhere, we did TV and radio shows. He wanted to tell the unusual story of his father, who miraculously escaped extermination and had an extraordinary destiny. I appear a little in this archive sequence at the Shoah memorial in Paris, where I spoke about my dad.
Was your father secretive like Bernard Giberstein with his family?
Quite. He was very secretive about his past. I have an anecdote that happened to me several decades later. Ironically, I did my military service at the Royallieu camp, in the air force, in Compiègne, from where the first wagons left for Auschwitz, in the barracks where the infirmary was located. ‘Abraham Drucker. All this 18 years after my father. I only discovered it almost 50 years later, for the inauguration of the Deportation Memorial in Compiègne in 2008. They knew that I had done my military service where my father had been. So I was invited to a day dedicated to families. The memorial historian explained the history of this camp. At one point, he stopped in front of one of the barracks and said: “We are now in front of Abraham Drucker’s infirmary”. I then recognized the barracks where I had done my military service. So I stayed for a year where my father was interned, which is not ordinary. It was overwhelming. I am probably the only one in the world in this situation. 18 years later, it’s not that far away. I remember, when I received my route sheet from the Ministry of the Armed Forces telling me that I was being sent to Compiègne, my father was decomposed. I never wanted him to come see me there because I thought it was too painful for him. Plus I didn’t have permission because I wasn’t very disciplined. I was in jail every weekend. I didn’t take military service seriously, but it left me with very, very good memories.
Michel Drucker: “The first time I went to Israel was to interview Sylvester Stallone on the set of Rambo 3 for the Champs-Élysées in 1987”
Did you ever talk about the Shoah with your family?
We talked about it very little. My father didn’t want it. I was not raised in the Jewish tradition. My father’s name was Abraham, my parents are Israelites. But, something quite rare, he had us baptized. My brothers and I even had our communion! My mother was furious. She was much closer to Israel than my father, she was more Zionist. He absolutely wanted us to forget all this past. He wanted to unpick the yellow star because he only had one fear: that it would come back. So he kept us away from all that. He told us: “Your only answer is to be number 1, for all three of you to be yellow jerseys”. With my brothers Jean and Jacques, we did what we could.
When did you first go to Israel?
Very late ! At the time, Sylvester Stallone was filming Rambo 3 in the Negev desert. I went to interview him for Champs-Élysées, in 1987. As an initiatory journey, we do better (laughs)! I returned there 30 years later to play my first show in Tel Aviv (Alone…with you, in 2018, editor’s note). I was very moved. I was received like a star in Jerusalem. 2,000 people were standing at the end of the show. My Jewishness didn’t come until very late. But we never forget our roots, and no one can recover from our childhood. I still remember the atmosphere at home during the Six Day War when I was a kid.
You have undergone several operations in recent years. How are you ?
I’m a survivor. Over the past three years, I have spent almost a year in the hospital. Each time I came back from my operations very weakened and I recovered. I’m off for a ride!
Where will we see you on TV this summer?
I will be appearing on two shows for the Olympics. First in a 8:30 p.m. on Sunday which will be presented from the Eiffel Tower by Laurent Delahousse. Then in the daily show presented by Léa Salamé and Laurent Luyat, What games!. I was offered to perform it but my cardiologists only authorized me to do it once. Since my health problems, I have had a well-defined lifestyle. I don’t go to bed after 10:30-11 p.m.
Michel Drucker: “Celine Dion at the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games, it’s a very good idea”
You will come back in Roll on Sunday in September…
We had a great year! I’m leaving for a season. The channel asked me to do a longer show. Roll on Sunday will last almost two hours (110 minutes), instead of an hour and a half, from September 1st. I prepare myself. This will therefore be the 25th season. I am very happy !
When is your book published?
I started it in the summer of 2023 and I will finish it this summer. It will be released in 2025. It is not a book about the profession, but about time. I am often asked: “How did you manage to last?” So the book talks about how to settle down for a long time when you do this job. It will be called With time.
The Chained Duck featured two international stars at the opening ceremony, notably Celine Dion…
I don’t have any information. But why not. She hasn’t sang for two or three years. As I think it will be for one or two songs, on a boat, she could do it if she holds up vocally. It’s a very good idea. It’s not a return to the stage, not a concert. She had sung The Power of the Dream at the Atlanta Games in 1996. She would not be alone in Paris, since there would be two or three singers in total. If we offer it to her and she says yes, it’s because she feels capable of it. All of this is of course conditional.
