2017 commemoration for Odette and Moussa
September 11, 2017
On Sunday, September 10, we gathered once again around Odette and Moussa to honour their memory.
Three generations came together around the grave of Odette and Moussa Abadi. Hidden children, friends, nephews, children of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the Righteous formed a large family circle around those to whom we had come to pay tribute.
Rabbi Daniel Farhi, faithful to his mission, led the commemoration with all the affection and respect he still feels for Odette and Moussa.
Andrée Poch-Karsenti, our president, wished to say a few words to recall who Odette was:
I am currently reading “If This Is a Woman”, Sarah Helm’s book describing the concentration camp world of Ravensbrück, a women’s camp.
Why did this title make me think of Odette? Because on the first page of the book there is a sentence: “To those who said no.” And that applies to Odette.
At Auschwitz and at Bergen-Belsen, she too lived in the world of the camps – the suffering, the hunger, the long roll calls, the thirst, the brutality of the women Kapos. She must have watched helplessly as the sick in the Revier in her care died of disease and hunger… gassed… and borne it – she, a doctor, unable to treat them – while keeping the humanity the Nazis wanted to take from her.
She wanted to live to find us again, us, “her” children, hidden by her and Moussa, but also, and perhaps above all, because hatred never took hold of her and hope and love lived within her. Her book “Terre de Détresse”, written from the notes she took as soon as she returned from the camps, was meant to be a bulwark against rising negationism and to keep alive the memory of the facts.
It is this memory, their memory, that brings us together today. It is they whom we honour and whose memory we want to keep.
Natacha Karsenti then read a passage from “Terre de détresse”:
Nous avons tout connu au camp, la faim, la soif, les affres des étés torrides et des hivers glaciaux, toutes les maladies, toutes les déchéances, et les tortures, les flammes des fours crématoires et partout le mort.
Nous avons connu aussi, de la part de certaines d’entrés nous, les refus systématiques de comprendre et d'admettre des déportées d'ethnies ou de cultures différentes, les inégalités criantes, les persécutions, les brutalités bestiales, le retour à la barbarie.
Nous avons tout connu : les deuils, les espoirs fous vite déçus, la désespérance, et même la dérision et les rires.
Ce que nous savons maintenant à coup sûr, c'est que dans le pire des malheurs, notre grandeur et notre force étaient de nous sentir solidaires. Ce que nous avons appris, c'est que la misère absolue, les souffrances, la présence permanente de la mort peuvent faire se révéler des personnalités merveilleuses et inattendues et que leur amitié, leur tendresse, leur courage nous ont soutenues et quelquefois sauvées.
Mais si le souvenir de cette extraordinaire puissance d'amour s'impose, au milieu de l'horreur et du désespoir, dans les récits de notre vis d'enfer, comment la fierté d'avoir connu les meilleurs d'entre les femmes ne nous rendrait-elle pas encore plus cruelle l'injustice monstrueuse de leurs souffrances et de leur mort ?
This year we had the pleasure of welcoming Gida, Moussa’s niece. With her nephew Nadav, they both wished to add this stop to their journey from Israel. They wanted to share their attachment to Moussa and to his work. To do so, Gida spoke in French.
Ladies and gentlemen,
My name is Gida Abadi and I am Moussa’s niece. And this is Nadav Abadi, my nephew.
For years I have been coming to this grave, but this is the first time I have come to the official commemoration.
Odette and Moussa have had a great influence on me since our first meeting thirty years ago. Every year, until Odette’s death, I came to Paris, and a good relationship developed between us. Each time I was impressed by their humility, their strength and the strength of the bond between them. The story of their lives, which is bound up with the history of the Jewish people, has never stopped occupying my mind from then until today.
At the time, I told their story everywhere. I even approached Dr Paldiel at Yad Vashem, who later wrote an article about the Marcel network in the Yad Vashem magazine.
Yet I always felt that it was not enough.
Last year, when I retired, Nadav and I decided to research the subject in greater depth. We found many things. We discovered that two books had been written, as well as a few articles. We discovered that a documentary film had been made, and that interviews had been given on the radio and in the newspapers. We discovered the work of “Les Enfants et Amis ABADI”. I even have Moussa’s written testimony from the “Hidden Children” conference at the Palais du Luxembourg on May 21, 1995. Odette had sent it to me.
The deeper we went, the more we marvelled at the courage, the spirit of sacrifice and the humanity of Odette and Moussa, and at their ability to draw others into their heroic mission.
Our wish is to commemorate this heroic story once again in a different, respectful and meaningful way. We want to respect their last wishes. It was important to them to pass it on so that no one forgets the horror, no one forgets that it can happen again, no one forgets that a “hidden child” is not only a hidden child who survived the Shoah, but that hidden children are still, today, all over the world, suffering the horrors of war.
We want to pass on this story. Thank you for helping us to tell it.
Daniel Farhi chanted the El Malei Rachamim and the Kaddish.
We then met at our usual restaurant, “Chez Papa”, to share a friendly drink and more, since many of us stayed for lunch. It was an opportunity to prolong the moment with those who joined us this year.
Let us hope there will be even more of us next year.