|
|
 |
| |
The action of Christian Fellowship members
signified the Church's protest against the handing over of foreign Jews to the
occupying authorities, and that for him [Gerlier], having received these
children in trust from the hands of their parents, the obligation to protect
them was a moral imperative, and that, finally, his attitude was not at all
directed against the French government but against the German government. My
protest, he [Gerlier] added, in essence reinforces the government in its
relations with the occupying authorities because it makes clear to Germany the
domestic difficulties created in France by the handing over of the Jews.
According to Angéli, in their conversation Cardinal Gerlier
"took the entire responsibility for the decision of Father Chaillet,
considering that he found himself faced with a moral obligation superior to
governmental considerations."
September 3, 1942. Lucia
(Léa) Drommelschlager (née Gurwicz), 24, writes her son Edouard,
three years old, on the eve of her transfer from Rivesaltes to Drancy. She and
her husband, Richard, chose to leave their child behind to give him a chance to
survive. She was deported September 11 from Drancy to Auschwitz on convoy 31
and did not survive.
Rivesaltes, September 3, 1942
My Darling One and Only Little Baby,
I hope my few words will reach you, and that one day you will read
them, when you are old enough to understand the seriousness of what has
happened.
My darling, your Papa cannot bring himself to write you, but
believe me, little one, all our tenderest thoughts and our most ardent wishes
fly toward You, my one and only baby. We adore you, little son, you are our
only thought, and we are forced to leave you, to tear you from those closest to
you at the very moment when you need us most.
My precious little love,
don't hold it against us if we wronged you in some way. You are a man: always
be strong and proud the way you were even as a tiny child.
I don't know
if we should hold out any hope of ever seeing you again one day; but if we are
lost or dead, as soon as events permit, try to find your grandparents, for whom
you will take the place of their lost children. Be good and considerate.
Be good toward your Aunt and Uncle and behave yourself, and thank them
in our name for everything they do for you.
I kiss you with all my
shattered heart.
Your Maman. Kisses from Papa and Grandpa.
September 4, 1942. At the end of a bitter struggle by
social workers at the Rivesaltes camp, 20 children are spared but 82 others are
dispatched in a convoy to Drancy for deportation to the East. Andrée
Salomon of OSE has written of the effort by her fellow social workers to save
the Rivesaltes children earmarked for family "regrouping" – deportation.
This account of the Rivesaltes drama is by Mme. V. Hermann Samuel, another
courageous OSE worker at the camp.
At the end of August when the residue of
the various camps were transferred to Rivesaltes, which became the triage
center in the South ... that was when we learned unofficially that children who
had been previously released were going to be recalled to the camp to be
"regrouped" with their families.
|
|
| |
| |
| |
FRENCH
CHILDREN OF THE HOLOCAUST A memorial
Serge Klarsfeld
 |
Back |
Page 58 |
Forward |
 |
|
