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Once again, the social worker's role as a
witness was of primary importance. We had to be there so we could develop the
most complicated ways possible for recovering the children, so those in charge
could respond to any sharpening of the rules with passive opposition and a
marked lack of zeal; replying to a local gendarmerie's phone call that children
they sought had not been found, by saying, "Well, you've done your duty, you
may as well go home now."
And suddenly, one fine morning, without any
prior notice, a hundred children appeared in Block K, awaiting deportation at
the earliest opportunity.
Until that moment, all our actions had been
preventive. We had wanted and man aged to prevent any children from entering
Block K. Now they were there. It was up to the screening commission to move
them out. That was where we must now intercede.
Who were these
children? There were some who had just arrived with their parents, rounded up
locally or transferred from an- other camp. And there were others who, despite
all our efforts, had been returned to the camp for "regrouping."
The
convoy is ready and these children are on the list.
All our appeals to
the screening commission are in vain. The orders are strict: the children must
leave. The situation is desperate. And yet, there are precedents: a few days
earlier, a group of children managed to leave the Les Milles camp; another
group was released from the Venissieux camp. What can we do here? There are too
many children to attempt an isolated action. It's a fait accompli: 100 children
are going to be deported.
Still, against the odds, we have to act. OSE
demands that a separate children's bar- racks, which we will administer, be set
up outside Block K.
The arguments we brought to bear were certainly
valid: we wanted to spare the children the terrible crowding to which the
adults were subjected, to feed them well, to tend to their health, to preserve
them from the rats that infested Block K. But there were other reasons that we
kept to ourselves. If we could manage to separate the children from their
parents, we saw it as a way to prepare the parents for separation ... and give
them a glimpse of the possibility that their children might be saved even if
they themselves were not; but above all, if all hope appeared to be lost, we
wanted to play a final card: to obtain through pity and remorse what persuasion
had failed to achieve. Gathered together, all these children – these
dirty, tired, frightened children of all ages crammed on their beds of straw
– could hardly fail to move the French officials.... If it was our last
chance to save these children, we had to try. Also, on Sunday, a bright and
sunny afternoon, two high officials from the Prefecture had climbed up to the
camp with their wives, and we dragged them to the barracks where there were
children the same age as their own; we showed them those children so they would
at least be aware of the crime that was about to be committed. . . . But even
they, the Vichy delegates, no longer knew what to do. That was when our
director came from Montpellier and we all went together to see the prefect in
Perpignan in a last-ditch appeal to liberate this group of children. (We were
speaking, in fact, of those under the age of 16; older adolescents, alas,
didn't stand a chance.)
We argued that at the Les Milles camp, children
were not being deported.
"Yes," he replied, "but that's only
provisional."
"They're not being deported at Venissieux!"
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FRENCH
CHILDREN OF THE HOLOCAUST A memorial
Serge Klarsfeld
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