On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the release of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on Monday, France 2 broadcasts a documentary series in which 44 survivors, filmed in 2006, tell their deportation and their painful return to life.
In 2006, The Foundation for the memory of the Holocaust decides to collect the testimony of 44 survivors of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Auschwitznau, released on January 27, 1945, eighty years ago. More than a million deportees, mostly Jews, were held there in appalling conditions and killed by the Nazis. In this document with a historical value, men and women of various nationalities tell in front of the camera the horror of their deportation.
Director Catherine Bernstein leads some of these interviews at the time. Marked by the force of these stories – of all the survivors testifying in 2006, only four are still alive – she decided to shed light on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the largest concentration and extermination camp Nazi, illustrating their stories thanks to amateur films, photographs and animation images.
Thus a documentary series was born in five 40 -minute episodes, entitled Auschwitz, survivors tell, Traling the journey of these survivors: the persecution, their deportation and their release. These films made by Catherine Bernstein, supported by the historian Tal Bruttmann, were broadcast Monday January 27 at 9:10 p.m. on France 2. This Mosaic of testimonies, in the form of a tribute to all those who died in camps, reveals the difficulties for these survivors to return to life.
“When I wanted to tell, it didn’t happen. Things were so incredible, so insane, so unthinkablesays Gabriel Bénichou, who was 16 years old at the time of his arrest, in April 1943 in Marseille. Either they took me for a boastful or for a fabricator. (…) They didn’t believe me. “ Interned in the Drancy camp, in the Paris region, he was deported to Auschwitz a few months later. After being sent to the Warsaw Ghetto, then to Dachau, he was released on May 2, 1945. Return which proves to be trying both for the population, who discovers with horror what the deportees experienced, and for the survivors of the camps, who begin their difficult return to life, after months, even years, of indescribable sufferings and unimaginable deprivation.
André Kahn, who testifies in the documentary and died in January 2009, was one of the youngest deportees surviving concentration camps. He is 15 years old when, on denunciation, he was arrested with his family in Paris. They are all deported to Auschwitz in 1944. André and his sister Denise will be the only ones to escape. On his return to France, he weighs only 29 kilos. As he tells what he went through a doctor, the latter takes him for a madman.
“He wanted me to be locked up. Since that day, I have never talked about my deportation to anyone again.”
-André Kahn, surviving deportee from Auschwitz (died in 2009)in the documentary
It was only in the 1990s that he decided to testify to his history in schools, like many other survivors. After the recognition, in 1995, by the President of the Republic Jacques Chirac of France’s responsibility in the deportation and extermination of Jews during the Second World War.
On their return, the survivors of the camps are welcomed at the Lotétia hotel in Paris, transformed into a reception center where a crowd of people hurry, each hoping to find members of their family. If survivors benefit From medical management, psychological supports are absent. “At the time, there were no psychiatristsstands up Paul Chytelman, rescued from Auschwitz. We managed to survive (…) Perhaps it is also because of this that many of my comrades committed suicide on their return. “
Finding a normal life seems impossible for some of these deportees who, after having experienced anti -Semitic laws, roundups and the dehumanization of concentration camps, struggle to overcome the immeasurable pain in the loss of their loved ones. “I do not know if we realize that when we came back, we had no more attachment. More family, no ancestors, not only no parents, but no uncles, no aunts, nobody “”exhibits Daniel Urbejtel, 13 years old when arrested in Paris, interned in Drancy and deported to Auschwitz in July 1944, with his 15 -year -old brother. Their parents, arrested the previous year, died in this camp from which the two teenagers will return.
Among the many traumas that live in the survivors when they return, the guilt of having survived is one of the most significant. “They were ashamed of being alive, of having survived, if only that, Confides Paul Chytelman, resistant denounced and arrested by the Gestapo, who survived the internment to Auschwitz, forced work and the “death march” which led him to Bergen-Belsen at the end of the Second World War, in April 1945. If I had not made my wife promise, thirteen years ago, that I would not commit suicide, I might be already dead. “
The documentary Auschwitz, survivors tell, Directed by Catherine Bernstein, was broadcast on Monday January 27 at 9:10 p.m. on France 2 and on the France.TV platform.
