Lecture on the Marcel network in Ra’anana (Israel)

May 16, 2018

On Friday, April 13, 2018, a lecture on the Marcel network was held at the Ra’anana Pensioners Club (רַעֲנָנָה), north-east of Tel Aviv.

The lecture was prepared and presented by Gila Yeh, Moussa Abadi’s niece, her three daughters Mayann, Inbal and Lior, and her nephew Nadav.

Gila introduced the lecture; then, before an audience of about 80 people and for a little over an hour, Inbal and Mayann told the story of Odette and Moussa Abadi and of the Marcel network.

Alternating images and speech, Inbal and Mayann told of how Odette and Moussa met, their arrival in Nice and what gave rise to Moussa’s determination to save the children. They told how Moussa approached Monseigneur Rémond, Bishop of Nice, and of the new identities that covered their work.

They described Odette’s affection and devotion for the hidden children through testimonies collected from Jeannette Wolgust and Marthe Kuperminc. They related Odette’s arrest and Moussa’s courage in surviving and continuing the network’s activities without Odette.

The post-war period was not forgotten: from Odette’s liberation to the 50 years of silence that followed, and finally the desire to tell, in order to pass on and protect. Two extracts chosen from Moussa’s 1995 speech made a strong impression. To the question “Why did you do it?”, Moussa had answered: “Odette and I needed to ‘pass through the clouds’. And also because we were in the right place at the right time.” And to the question “What is a hidden child?”, Moussa answered: “It was a child in danger. It was a child who needed others. It was a child who was likely to die. So I ask you, I beg you, look around you. Think of the children of Rwanda, the children of Somalia, the street children of Manila, the children of Chernobyl, the children of Sarajevo. They are hidden children! And you owe them something. So do something. And if you do not have the means to do something for them, then cry out, scream, do not accept that in this world people are being killed a few hundred kilometres from your home.” – illustrating that tragedies are still being played out today and that it is the responsibility of each of us to help the weakest.

At the end of the lecture, a woman approached Gila and told her that she herself had been a hidden child in the Nice region. She remembers little and has no memory of Odette and Moussa. She remembers that her name was Yvonne Hirsch, that she was 7 or 8, and that she was taken by a social worker to a woman named Suzanne Maron in the village of Saint-Gaultier. Her name is not on the list of Abadi Children, but who knows…?

The lecture was enthusiastically received. Even days later, Gila and her family received warm encouragement, sometimes in the middle of the street, from delighted listeners.

For Gila, Nadav, Inbal and Mayann, it was more than just a lecture: it was a real family project, full of emotion and the joy of passing on.

The presentation was based on conversations with members of the association Les Enfants et Amis Abadi, on Moussa’s 1995 speech and on some material from Fred Coleman’s book “The Marcel Network”. Extracts from Moussa’s speech were translated into Hebrew and read during the lecture. Many photos and documents were borrowed from the website of the association Les Enfants et Amis Abadi.