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At least one gets away. After a few
hours, they shout for us to line up; we're going to be taken to the Velodrome
d'Hiver. We try to hide behind the cars in the garage, but they find us and
make us board the buses that still list various destinations. We drive down the
streets of Belleville, that usually joyful neighborhood, and everywhere we look
the scene is the sa me: groups of Jews being led off like criminals by the
police. I look at the sun filled streets, which appear to me like an oasis of
the freedom I no longer know. Suddenly, I see a friend of mine from school
looking sadly at the buses from the sidewalk: she doesn't know that on one of
these buses a schoolmate of hers is leaving, innocent and yet a prisoner. We
pull up before the great door of the Velodrome d'Hiver, rue Nelaton. [Photo, page 41]. We're told to disembark
and, in the confusion while everyone is looking for their things, my mother and
I try to escape between two buses. A policeman calls out, "Hey, you over there,
where do you think you're going with that suitcase?" We return toward the door
and we're pushed into the stadium. In the entryway, policemen are setting up
camp cots. Two women throw themselves on each other crying, "That's where we're
going to sleep? On those little beds?" I tell one of the officers: "There won't
be enough beds for all these people!" He laughs. "But these beds are for us!
You're going to sleep on the ground, over there." My mother and I try again to
cross the street and we go into a café, imagining that from there we'll
be able to escape, but a policeman follows us and asks what we're doing. We
tell him we haven't had breakfast yet, which is true, and he waits for us to
finish our coffee before leading us back inside the Vel d'Hiv. There, what a
strange, heartbreaking sight! On the track where cyclists normally ride, people
are sitting on their suitcases, terrified, disoriented. Some of them are
running every which way and shouting, but most of us just sit there silently,
as if paralyzed by anxiety, not understanding what is happening to us. People
recognize each other and shout out the details of what they saw during their
arrest; a woman threw herself from a fifth story, a man hanged himself a mother
was torn from her children, they fired on people who were trying to escape. I
listen terrified, and watch people being carried in on stretchers: the sick,
the crippled, amputees. But we had been told we were being sent to work in
Germany. How did they plan to use these unfortunate souls? Oh, things are well
run. There are nurses to look after the sick and little children, but what of
the future? The brutality of the police is revolting. We were not accustomed to
such treatment in France. Our distress is very great and my mother decides that
we have to escape at any cost. But this time we have to leave our valise
behind, because it always gives us away. She carefully slips a label with our
name and address on the inside: "Maybe they'll return it to us." How naive! She
gives me my ration card and a hundred francs and tells me to try to escape, and
not to think about her. I hesitate, then walk toward the main door, my coat on
my arm; I'm not wearing a gold star. Buses continue to arrive without a let-up
and while the police are busy with the new arrivals, I advance a few steps on
the sidewalk. A policeman comes up to me and asks, "What are you doing there?"
I say, "I'm not Jewish, I came to see someone." "Get out of here – you can
come back tomorrow," he says. Glancing to one side, I see my mother smiling,
relieved; she's overheard. I leave, coat over my shoulders, and slowly cross
the street. I take rue Nocard across from the Vel d'Hiv and follow it, not
daring to turn around, trembling at the thought that someone might come
shouting after me, and with a heavy heart because of having left Maman. At the
end of the street a policeman is barring anyone from going through. My heart is
pounding but he lets me pass, thinking I live in one of the buildings on that
street. Once on the quai, I walk for a long time, until I work up the courage
to enter a metro station and change my hundred-franc note to buy a ticket. My
mother had told me to go to some French friends who live near the
Glacière stop; they would hide me. When I go downstairs into the
station, I see my mother. She had escaped half an hour after me. Without a
word, we run to the apartment of our friends, who receive us with tears and
close the door behind us. After spending nearly two years in relative freedom,
we were denounced and deported to Auschwitz. But that's another chapter, too
long and too painful, so I'll end my poor recollection here.
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FRENCH
CHILDREN OF THE HOLOCAUST A memorial
Serge Klarsfeld
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