In the village of Reillanne, it is the day of commemoration. We remember the last roundup operated by the Vichy authorities on French territory in May 1944, at the request of the Nazis. 54 lives torn from humanity, interned and then deported to Poland to be exterminated in Auschwitz.
At a time when the last witnesses are disappearing, it is more than ever necessary to tell with precision the story of each child, each woman, each man murdered by the Nazis because Jewish.
It is the meticulous work of our guest historian Annette Becker. In his book published in the Witnesses collection at Gallimard “Jews betrayed by their France 1939-1944», She knows how to tell us of lives in words of love, in suffering, in hope, of the lives in belief of France homeland of human rights, from lives to the end in resistance. Those of the Reillanne camp, a village in the south of France whose commemoration we share with you. That of the famous painter Otto Freundlich, supported until the end by her lover Jeanne Kosnick-Kloss, and that of her grand-uncle Pierre Ignace, won on December 12, 1941, interned in Compiègne then deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau by the Convoy N ° 1 of March 27, 1942.
De Reillanne, where Daphné Gastaldi went to report to Auschwitz, where Cyril Etienne and Guélia Pevnez went to interview the director of the Piotr Cywinski State Museum, this episode of the world is dedicated to the memory of each victims of the Shoah.
Read and see for the 80th anniversary of the release of the Auschwitz camp, January 27, 1945:
– « Jews betrayed by their France. 1939-1944 », From the historian Annette Becker, specialized in the study of the two great wars and genocides of the 20th and XXth centuries. Witness-Gallimard collection.
– « Auschwitz. Human monograph “, From Piotr Ma Cywiński, director of the State Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Posted by Calmann-Lévy and the Shoah Memorial.
– « Auschwitz, survivors tell », A masterful documentary series in 5 episodes, where we discover 44 stories of survivors, including director Catherine Bernstein has made a great story to 44 votes for history.
-Broadcast Monday January 27, 2025 on France 2 to 9:10 p.m.
Documentary resources :
Reillanne, a living memory of the roundup, a report by Daphne Gastaldi.
On May 12, 1944, one of the last roundups took place in Provence, in Reillanne (Basses-Alpes). Eighty years later, a ceremony paid tribute to these victims, 54 foreign Jews of Russian, Polish, Czech or German-Austrian-transferred to Auschwitz. The names were read at the microphone to pay tribute to them during the ceremony. Nearly 600 people were deported to this department. However, this Reillanne camp is unknown, while it was in the constellation of the Camp des Milles, in Aix-en-Provence. France was “Taken at least two hundred camps” who contributed to the genocidal program of the third Reich, specifies the historian Annette Becker In his latest book “Jews betrayed by their France-1939-1944”.
On site, the day of the inauguration, the resistant and founder of the association Basses Alpes 39-45 Thérèse Dumonthelped by her son, remembers the inauguration of the first plaque 30 years ago, at the time incomplete and not very accessible to the public. A resident of the village, Anne-Marie Gerbierrecalls with dread coming on vacation next to this camp and having rubbed shoulders with prisoners without knowing, when she was a child.
So that history is not deleted, High school students from Manosque made a commemorative plaque clearly mentioning this roundup of May 12, 1944, on the old internment camp of Notre-Dame-des-Prés, and accessible from the road to the public. Their history teacher and project coordinator, David Soulardguides us in the old camp, where there is no trace of the past.
At the microphone of RFI, Annette Becker, and Jan Lambertz, an American archivist Who works basically on the USHMM Holocaust, tells their research to trace the course of the former prisoners. Isabelle Grenutassistant to the town hall of Reillanne and historian by training, explains the living conditions at the time in the camp.
