Memory

This work presents eight texts about the camp "C" or "Jewish camp" of Royallieu, a suburb of Compiègne 75 km north of Paris. Thanks to this previous unpublished volume, the reader can complete his understanding of the terrible internment conditions of Jews in his camp for Nazi retaliations, under the auspices of the German Army.

This book tells the tragic story of Adèle Grossman, a young Polish Jew from the region of Lodz. Having lost most of her family, she found herself alone in Auschwitz, in Birkenau and then in the Stutthof camp. Left for dead at the time of the evacuation, she had to undergo amputation of both her legs, frozen during the "death march". Despite all her physical suffering, despite the unspeakable pain of losing her close relatives, Adèle maintained an inner strength to the continue to live and to found a family.

In May 1945, Erich Altmann was 41. He survived the hell of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Buchenwald, Oranienburg an two "death marches". For nearly three years, Erich Altmann found within himself the strength to survive and tell the world of the dimensions of the crime and the extent of the atrocities committed by the Nazis.

In the context of the creation of a network of Shoah remembrance sites in France, the Foundation for the Memory of the Shaoh supported the development of the site of the former Gurs camp in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques.

On January 18th, 2007 President Jacques Chirac, at the invitation of the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah and its president, Simone Veil, pays homage, in the name of the people of France, to the Justes of France and all those anonymous French men and women who saved the lives of Jews during the Occupation. The ceremony will be a reminder of the fact that the lives of three quarters of the Jews of France were saved during that period.

Simone Veil and Emmanuel Hoog, head of the National Audiovisual Institute, announced the completion of the first programme ‘Testimonies of the Shoah', a collection of 115 audiovisual testimonies of former deportees, hidden children, Resistance workers, Justes and other witnesses of the period of Occupation. 

This book is a new edition of the an account published by Guy Kohen on his return from deportation. The trauma of his memories - still very present in his mind - and the need to communicate to the world the inconceivable horror of the Nazi barbarity provide all the power of his narrative.

Jean-Jacques Bernard is the son of he famous man of letters Tristan Bernard. Himself a playwright, he was arrested during the police roundup of December 12, 1941, which affected 743 eminent French Jewish citizens. Jean-Jacques Bernard was interned in the German camp of Compiègne-Royallieu.

Après la libération du complexe d’Auschwitz, Jean Oppenheimer est transféré à Katowice dans l’attente de son rapatriement en France. Là, il décide de rédiger un "journal de route" pour reprendre pied dans la vie en consignant les événements du retour. Cette écriture quotidienne l’amènera rapidement à témoigner de son expérience concentrationnaire afin "d’avoir enfin cet affreux cauchemar à l’état de souvenir".

The itinerary of Jenny Masour-Ratner is intimately linked to the history of the Organisation to Save the Children - OSE (Oeuvre de secours aux enfants), where she worked till the early 1960s. A Russian Jewish immigrant from Odessa, Jenny left the Paris region during the exodus and went to Montpellier where she joined the OSE. Following the organisation’s movements, she participated in the decision-making and was active up to the Liberation to save Jewish children.