ORDINARY GENERAL MEETING of Wednesday, March 18, 2009

at the Centre Communautaire
119 rue La Fayette, 75010 Paris

Agenda:

• Treasurer’s financial report

• President’s report

• Any other business

Number present or represented: 20 members  

At 7.45 p.m. the meeting is opened by the President

I. Treasurer’s financial report

Income

Of 48 registered members, 24 have paid their subscription, for a total of €2,906.31.
Note the exceptional contribution of $1,500 (€995.97) from Carlos Abadi.
Other income: royalties (L’Harmattan, Terre de Détresse): €23.95

Total income: €2,930.26

Expenditure

Result

The year shows a surplus of €293.27

Cash position

At December 31, 2007, funds in the bank amount to €3,978.24, of which €2,036.80 is invested in a Moné association account.

For the record: the association’s original funds were €9,146.94

2009 grant

To finance the expenses of the “Theatre” day on June 22, 2009, a grant of €2,500.00 has been awarded by the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah (€6,000 had been requested).

Victor Kuperminc
Treasurer

II. President’s report

On March 23, 2000 Jeannette Wolgust registered the founding of our association with the prefecture. Nine years is young for an institution, but we, the Children and the Friends, are no longer in early childhood, and thinking of the goal we have set ourselves (to preserve and perpetuate the memory of Odette and Moussa), I wonder how many more years we will be able to show the vitality needed to keep pursuing it. This slightly melancholy note is just to remind you that we need to think about who will take over…

Let us banish these gloomy thoughts for a moment to welcome new children among us, some of them virtually, since they arrived through our website. I would like to mention: 

• Joseph Sungolowsky, who wrote his story during the war; his testimony is on our website.

• Flora Hogman from the United States, who was hidden in Nice at the convent of the Poor Clares.

• Laurence Brust-Fitoussi, daughter of Isidore Brust (who died at 42), who was hidden by the Marcel network in Vevey with partisans, Mr and Mrs Gérard. Although they were Protestants, they allowed Isidore to have his Bar Mitzvah.

• Margot Lam-ba, a new Abadi Child who discovered herself on the list of hidden children.

Since we are on the subject of the Internet, let us continue with the good news:
since it was created, our website has had 10,557 visitors, including schoolchildren and students from the grandes écoles researching their dissertations (see the statistics). Writing an activity report is sometimes difficult: you have to remember the events – not always easy! Well, by looking at our website, it’s easy!!! 

January 2008:
The Week on Deportation was organised by the Cours Morvan in partnership with the town hall of the 9th. A plaque was put up on the school walls in honour of Odette, who was the school doctor there. Our panels and those of the Dora Ellrich foundation were exhibited, with the film Le Réseau Marcel playing on a loop. General d’Astorg, a former deportee and resister, Aude de Saint-Loup, head of the Cours Morvan, who initiated the project, Gisèle Altman, Marthoune Kuperminc, Jacqueline Pollack, Jeannette and I welcomed the visitors. Pierre-Emmanuel Dauzat was there every day. The week ended with a round table in the presence of Stéphane Hessel.

In February 2008:
For International Women’s Day, the association Mémoire et Espoirs de la Résistance organised a conference on “Family and Everyday Resistance”. We had the surprise and great pleasure of hearing a talk by Madame Boyer-Ben Kemoun about Odette and Moussa and their work in the Marcel network. Madame Boyer, a senior history teacher in charge of the education department of the Maréchal Leclerc Memorial and the Jean Moulin Museum, discovered the existence of the Marcel network through Year 10 pupils preparing for the Resistance competition, who had chosen to work on Odette and Moussa.

May 16, 2008:
Some of us shared the emotion of an evening at the theatre.
The young pupils of the drama class at the Collège and Lycée Morvan – the company Ombelle – presented their work, of which we had had a glimpse during the Week on Deportation at the town hall of the 9th. Their teacher, Frédérique Barthalay, who holds a postgraduate diploma in sign language, was assistant to Maurice Bénichou and J.C. Barbeau on Kressmann Taylor’s Address Unknown. She has also directed several bilingual shows for young deaf and hard-of-hearing children and teenagers (co-produced with the Cinémathèque de Paris). These young people sensitively brought to life some of the sad hours of the war and, for a few moments, shared their land of silence with us.

May 1, 2008:
In partnership with the MJLF, and thanks to Pierre and Coline Loeb’s links with this movement, our association joined the reading of the names of the Jews deported from France.
Thanks to Victor, Marthoune, Gisèle, Armand Kac and Jeannette, who read the names.

June 4, 2008:
The prize-giving ceremony of the Resistance and Deportation Competition was held in the Grand Amphitheatre of the Sorbonne, organised by the Academic Delegation for Arts and Culture (DAAC) in partnership with resisters’ associations and the City of Paris. The aim of the competition is to keep alive among young French people the memory of deportation and the values of the Resistance (website of the Académie de Paris). The national theme of the competition: Helping persecuted and hunted people in France during the Second World War: a form of Resistance. We were happy to be there as members of our association. The pupils of the Cours Morvan, who were very involved, wrote a remarkable project.
The Year 10 class “Verlaine”, with their teacher Annie Carcaillon, received a special mention.

September 12, 2008
Unveiling of the plaque inaugurating the Place Moussa et Odette Abadi. Our persistent efforts – but also, it must be said, the determination of Madame Blumenthal – finally succeeded. Beyond the emotion we felt, we the Children and Friends, this symbol of the Republic recognising Odette and Moussa’s action in the face of Nazi barbarity was very important. A delegation from AMEJDAM came from Nice: its president, Michèle Merowka, and some members of the association, including Maurice and Madeleine Germain. An article in their newsletter in October reported on the event. It is to Michèle Merowka that we owe the film extracts on our website, and although she is not an Abadi Child, at the unveiling of plaques on school walls she never stops talking about Odette and Moussa and showing the film about the Marcel network. Thank you to this ambassador!

November 13, 2008
The association for the Memory of the Deported Jewish Children of the 12th, Madame Blumenthal, Mayor of the 12th, and the municipal team unveiled a memorial stone in memory of the children too young to be at school. The memory remains vivid of the three hundred and fifty children living in the 12th who were annihilated by the Vichy laws. Sixty of them were not yet at school; the youngest was six days old. Many classes from local schools attended, with a choir and a small orchestra. The large audience was deeply moved to hear these children’s voices and the stringed instruments bringing back memories. The ceremony closed with a release of white balloons, each bearing a label with a child’s name.
It continued with a double exhibition in the town hall foyer, where the emotion lingered as people looked at the panels. Facing each other: on one side the deported children, whose names were collected by Serge Klarsfeld; on the other the Marcel network, which saved 527 children.

My infinite thanks to our webmaster for his very efficient management of the website: Emmanuel Gagnier, grandson of Pastor Gagnier. Remember to visit our website – and to contribute to it!..

Following Joseph Sungolowsky’s example, I invite you to write about how you came into contact with the Marcel network. Other Abadi children might be found through notices placed on our website. After seeing the names of two young girls (Rajberger, with no further details) on the list of children of the Marcel network, Dror Linder asks whether anyone could give him information about them.

Also, someone preparing a documentary on the conversion of hidden children to Christianity is looking for witnesses. Contact: Emmanuele Cala, tel. 06 72 76 20 26.

Armand Kac would like to get in touch with Abadi children who made the journey from Nice to the Swiss border during the war, and to record their testimony.

Through their efforts, Armand and Paulette Kac have ensured that our panels are held at the museum in Champigny and are available to anyone wishing to consult them.

I would like to mention the publication of a book: D’une guerre l’autre… Combats de Femmes (From one war to another… Women’s struggles), published by Esprit du Livre. It is a collective work (27 portraits of women) in which Marie Gatard, a friend of the Abadis, devotes twelve pages to Odette. We supplied the photographs illustrating her text.

I would also remind you that Odette is one of the figures portrayed by the actress Pierrette Dupoyet in her play Un sursis pour l’orchestre (A reprieve for the orchestra), performed first in Avignon and then in Paris.

Abadi children, including Eve Schmidt, give talks in schools. Jeannette Wolgust spent four days in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, where she presented the documentary about the Marcel network to several classes at the general and vocational lycées. The pupils were absolutely fascinated and deeply impressed by this story they had just discovered.

Current projects

An exhibition at the town halls of the 11th and in Champigny, organised by Paulette and Armand Kac. 

A conference on June 22, 2009, 4 bis cité Véron, 75018 Paris.
Theatre and Resistance: Odette and Moussa Abadi, a couple in the storm
This conference will require a strong mobilisation.

When I began this report I was a little worried about its content, which I thought thin; I hope I have not gone on too long.

The agenda having been completed, the meeting closes at 10 p.m.

Andrée Poch-Karsenti
President