14th International Festival of Films on the Resistance
November 14 to 19, 2011
The 14th International Festival of Films on the Resistance, organised by the Museum of the Resistance in Nice, took place on the Côte d’Azur from November 14 to 19, 2011.
Invited by its President, Mr Panicacci, I had the pleasure of seeing Le Réseau Marcel shown at the official opening of the festival, and of seeing those two young people, Odette Rosenstock and Moussa Abadi, creators of the network for rescuing Jewish children in the Alpes-Maritimes, honoured.
Michèle Merowka, a member of the Museum, President of AMEJDAM (Association for the memory of the deported children of the Alpes-Maritimes) and also an “Abadi Friend”, had organised a meeting with 88 Year 10 pupils from the Collège César in the “Pavillon Bleu” hall in Roquefort-les-Pins. An active member, Michèle Merowka hardly let us catch our breath: three Year 10 classes, still moved by “Monsieur Batignole”, in Le Cannet, and finally a morning in Cannes with another screening of “Le Réseau Marcel” for a final-year class at the Lycée Bristol. One of their teachers, Mrs Avinain-Benayoun, who initiated the project, was there, as was Annette Fort-Maurice, a most precious witness.
Annette Fort-Maurice is the daughter of Germaine and Alban Fort, who from 1939 ran a home for destitute children and babies. Alban Fort, called up in August 1939, was taken prisoner in May 1940. From May 1940 to September 1940, Germaine Fort continued her work with the residents of the home. From September 1943 until the Liberation, the home hid thirty-three children of the Marcel network.
Mr and Mrs Fort received the Medal of the Righteous on August 27, 1985 – posthumously, in Alban Fort’s case.
I was one of those children, and my contribution with the pupils in Roquefort and Le Cannet and the lycée pupils in Cannes, though sometimes painful, allowed me to build a bridge between the history of yesterday and the present. The young people had many questions and reflections, especially as the Year 12 pupils at the Lycée Bristol in Cannes had planned a visit to Auschwitz.
They wrote to me. Their words, their reflections and their stances not only deeply moved me but confirmed me in the value of my presence with pupils.
Taking part in the various debates also allowed me to go beyond my own story, to draw these young people’s attention to more current events, to be not only a living witness of a distant past for them, but also to pass on Moussa’s message, quoting Paul Valéry: “The future in itself has no image. It is the past that gives it the means to be conceived.”
Andrée Poch-Karsenti