“Those days of tears and shame.” This is how Jacques Chirac, in 1995, described July 16 and 17, 1942, when more than 13,000 Jews were deported to death camps. These words, David Korn-Brzoza, the director of the documentary La Rafle du Vel’d’Hiv, shame and tearsdeliberately borrows them from the former President of the Republic, the first Head of State to recognize France’s responsibility in this massive arrest during the Second World War.
By mixing unpublished archive images, 3D animation scenes and above all testimonies of the last survivors, the film, carried by the voice of Vincent Lindon, recounts in detail this tragedy which did not spare the children: 4,000 of them they were arrested during this raid.
“Hundreds of children over the age of two are part of these pitiful processions. Two years, an age deemed acceptable to be rounded up at dawn and soon join a concentration camp.”
David Korn-Brzoza and Laurent Jolyin “La Rafle du Vel d’Hiv, shame and tears”
Among the eight survivors who testified, Rachel Jedinak, eight years old at the time, remembers precisely the morning of July 16: “We thought we were safe [elle vit alors cachée avec sa sœur chez sa grand-mère]. And at dawn, great knocks at the door, very violent. ‘Police !’ My grandmother opens. (…) One of the two policemen said to us: ‘Come on children, get dressed quickly, you are going to join your mother.’ (…) ‘You can thank your concierge, she was the one who told us where you were’.”
Arlette Testyler was also eight years old in 1942. Her father had fought for France in 1939. When he was demobilized, he joined his wife and two daughters in Paris. In May 1941, he was arrested during the roundup of the greenback and sent to Auschwitz. Arlette Testyler recalls: “Mom gets up, goes to the door. She asks who is there. They say to her: ‘Police! (…) We are coming to get your husband.’ And there, mom gets so angry: ‘But he has already left for an unknown destination!’ And they, without disassembling themselves, they say: ‘Well it doesn’t matter, it will be you and your children.'”
Some arrested mothers suspect that it is towards death that they are being sent. They will go so far as to give their children to strangers to save them. A French woman, non-Jewish, who wished to remain anonymous, said: “A woman beckoned me to approach. ‘Take my little girl, ma’am. With you, she won’t be afraid to leave me. I don’t want her to know what I sense.’ The child took my hand and followed me home. I did it because it was self-evident.”
The documentary La Rafle du Vel’d’Hiv, shame and tears directed by David Korn-Brzoza is visible in replay on France 3 since June 12.