“We cannot just commemorate, even in a place of memory“said Sunday July 17 on franceinfo Hélène Mouchard-Zay, the youngest daughter of Jean Zay, Minister of National Education under the Popular Front. He too was interned by the Vichy regime, then assassinated by milliciens. “We have to make history“, insists Hélène Mouchard-Zay. It is “essential, including for our present where we see the old demons reappear“. She deplores “a trivialization of anti-Semitic remarks”.Taboos fall“, laments Hélène Mouchard Zay.
>> REPLAY. Rafle du Vel’d’Hiv: relive Emmanuel Macron’s speech in Pithiviers
franceinfo: Why was it important to make Pithiviers station a place of memory?
Helene Mouchard-Zay: The children had a real ordeal. It is much more than a stage. This is where the children were cruelly separated from their mothers. We collected testimonies from children who managed to survive. It was from there that the mothers were deported by four convoys which left directly from the Pithiviers camps. Pithiviers station, along with Drancy, is one of the only stations from which trains left directly for Auschwitz. And at the end of August, whole convoys of children left, passed through Drancy, and were then murdered in Auschwitz. None of the children returned.
Is it important for you to transmit to high school students, college students, who will come to this museum?
It is completely essential. In Orléans, there is already a memorial museum which tells the story of these camps in great detail. The Pithiviers museum will be complementary, insisting much more on the circumstances of the departure, on how the convoys were formed, with also reminders of testimonies. This story shows to what extent the Vichy regime was criminally responsible for choosing collaboration. But the Vichy regime did not fall from the sky. All this did not fall from the sky. All this has been prepared in a certain way by a whole story. And an essential question is, how did we come to this? How in France, country of human rights, land of asylum – this is what Chirac said – how this Vichy regime was able to hand over to those who were going to exterminate them, masses of children, women and men?
27 years ago, Jacques Chirac recognized France’s full responsibility for the Vel d’Hiv roundup. This Sunday in Pithiviers, Emmanuel Macron called “the republican forces” at “increase vigilance“in the face of anti-Semitism”even hotter” and “crawling” than 20 years ago. Is it essential, after elections which were marked by the rise of the National Rally and by extreme speeches?
Absolutely, especially the rise of what is called revisionism or negationism. These are people who begin by trying to rehabilitate Pétain with historical lies. I don’t really like the expression “duty of memory”. I prefer “memory work” and “history homework”. We have to make history. It is not enough to commemorate, even in a place of memory, if the visit by these young people is not prepared in advance and resumed afterwards. We must do this educational work that accompanies young people in these visits to places of memory. And these visits to places of memory must tell and explain how we got there. It is absolutely essential, including for our present where we see even old demons reappear.
This is a very big concern. Inevitably we say to ourselves, have we done everything that was necessary? Many teachers do a wonderful job in high schools on these events. They don’t have much time, unfortunately. However, anti-Semitism is there. So, of course, he puts on new clothes. It’s never the same. If only because there is a law that prohibits anti-Semitic remarks. So he hides under other clothes, other terms. But we can clearly see that it is still there and we can clearly see that people are still murdering in the name of anti-Semitism. One of the things that struck me a lot was the desecration of the Jewish cemetery in Carpentras in 1990. My generation would never have thought that there could be such things. There were about a million people on the street. And at their head, the President of the Republic. In 2012, in Toulouse, Jewish children were murdered in a schoolyard, and I did not see a demonstration. Symbolically, this means that barriers fall, taboos fall. There is a trivialization of these anti-Semitic remarks.