Published
Article written by
/2021/12/14/61b8b98e077d1_france-2.png)
On October 19, the National Audiovisual Institute (INA) will reveal 5:30 of an interview with Simone Veil never broadcast to date. She looks back on all the chapters of her life, her childhood, the deportation, her many battles. Here is the story of this interview that had disappeared.
Among the archives of the National Audiovisual Institute (INA), a treasure has been buried for more than 15 years. Cassettes contain 5h30 of an interview carried out in the INA studios in 2006 with Simone Veil within the institute itself. The woman recounts her life and testifies in particular to her deportation. “We were hungry, we were thirsty, we were cold, terribly cold, we were sleepy. But humiliation was the thing that was wanted in addition, free…“, she says in particular, evoking a “permanent humiliation“.
The document was hitherto unpublished. Simone Veil chaired the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah and had decided to launch a collection of testimonies coordinated by Dominique Missikaof the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah. 110 interviews were carried out with the Righteous and deportees. “Simone Veil did not want her testimony to be put forward more than the others. It’s a testimony for history, but you had to hear them all“, reports Dominique Missika. Simone Veil testified tirelessly about the Holocaust. As a politician, she participated in commemorations or by answering questions from schoolchildren. “It is a duty of transmission that we have“, she affirmed. The document will be accessible at all16 years after its registration.