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and addresses their mothers wrote on their
clothes have been erased by rain; or else, either inadvertently or while
playing, they traded clothes with another child.
Next to their number
on the list we had to place a question mark.
The question of food is
also a disaster: what to feed these little children, already so sick. This
watery carrot soup, not enough bowls, not enough spoons. We had to force the
littlest ones to eat.
I recall a tiny girl of around two, adorable, who
had miraculously remained clean. One of my friends was holding her in her arms
to feed her. She immediately fell asleep; each time we tried to lay her on a
mattress she woke up screaming. She had found a tenderness she no longer knew
and didn't want to be abandoned again. My friend, weeping, couldn't bring
herself to leave her, even though there were so many others who needed us too.
We lay them down to sleep three and four to each germ-infested
mattress, which grew more so by the hour thanks to the dysentery which was
tormenting all those small bodies.
Many no longer had shoes. Our
shoemakers were able to fashion sandals for some of them from blocks of wood
and rope. Others left barefoot.
Before they left on the long journey,
the men and children of both sexes had their heads shaved. This is a disturbing
measure and affects people's morale, especially children's. A little boy wept
hot tears. He was about five, ravishingly beautiful, with curly blond hair that
had never known the touch of scissors. He kept repeating he didn't want his
hair cut, his mother was so proud of it, and since he had been promised that he
was on his way to see her, she had to see her little boy intact.
After
the departure of these 3,000 or 4,000 children without parents, we were left
with 80 too sick to travel with the others; but we couldn't keep them any
longer. We found them a few articles of clothing each. They ranged in age from
2 to 12. Like the adults, they were placed in areas off Drancy's unforgettable
departure stairways. Sometimes 1,000 people earmarked for departure would be
left there for two or three days, isolated from the rest of the camp. Men,
women, and children all lying on a bed of straw rapidly covered with filth...
A friend and I were sent at 3 A.M. to get these 80 children ready to
leave, to dress them.... To step inside these barracks was to be immediately
overcome. I found my children asleep, the littlest ones already infected with
dysentery. Without any light, I began to prepare them, but I didn't know where
to begin. Toward five in the morning we had to get them down into the
courtyard, so they would be ready to board the buses ... that would take them
to the station at Bourget.
Impossible to get them down the stairs: they
begin to shout; a real revolt; they refuse to move. The instinct of
self-preservation. They would not be so easily led to slaughter. This scene was
frightful; I knew there was nothing we could do; one way or another, they would
be forced to leave.
Downstairs, growing impatience. The children were
not coming down the stairs. I tried to carry them down one by one; they were
furious, struggled against me, shouted.
The youngest were unable to
carry their own little parcels. The gendarmes went upstairs and brought them
down roughly... .
At the moment of departure, the name of each deportee
was recorded. Of the 80 children, some 20 didn't know their names. We gently
tried to pry them out of them, but to no avail. Just then I saw the master of
all these fates, the German NCO Heinrichsohn, 22 years old, elegantly dressed
in leather riding breeches. He always showed up for
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FRENCH
CHILDREN OF THE HOLOCAUST A memorial
Serge Klarsfeld
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