Day of January 26, 2023 in Nice Saint-Isidore

February 9, 2023

Do you know the Potager de la Fantaisie (Fantasy Kitchen Garden)? Had the association Les Enfants et Amis Abadi decided
to go green? Perhaps – but this kitchen garden is a leisure and culture association in
Nice Saint-Isidore, whose president and founder, Patrizia Gallo, is its heart. And what else?
What were we going to do there on Thursday, January 26 at 8.45 a.m., in temperatures unworthy of the Côte d’Azur?
First, represent the association Les Enfants et Amis Abadi at a ceremony
of tribute at the war memorial, in memory of Dante Gasperi, a victim of the war. The end of
January is the week of commemorations, and Patrizia had placed her day under the banner of “The International Day
in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust and the Prevention of Crimes against Humanity”.

Several associations were present, as well as representatives of the City of Nice: much-appreciated
speeches were given before local residents by Mrs Monique Bailet,
Deputy Mayor for the Nice West area and civil registration and sub-delegate for local services, and
Mrs Marie-Christine Fix, Deputy Mayor for veterans, army-nation links and
the Universal National Service, as well as by Mrs Elisabetta Castellano, President of the Comites of
Nice and Vice-Consul of Italy in Nice. Mr Louis Panicacci, President of the Museum of the
Resistance on the Côte d’Azur, was also present.

Pupils from the Nice Saint-Isidore primary school, accompanied by Mr Hervé Saccheri,
the head teacher, read extracts from Jean Ferrat’s “Nuit et Brouillard”, Primo Levi’s “If This
Is a Man” and Joyce Lussu’s “Il y a une paire de chaussures rouges” (There is a pair of red shoes).
The day continued at the premises of Anima Nice Saint-Isidore with some pupils from
the primary school, where Daniel Wancier, Yad Vashem representative in Nice, and I
first described our own experiences as hidden children; I was then able to retrace the lives and
actions of Odette and Moussa with their “accomplices”, Monseigneur Rémond and Pastors Gagnier and
Evrard. The children, very interested, asked some very pertinent questions.
Philippe Amard, the author of “Les trois vies de Suzana Baker”, told, based on elements of
his mother’s life, of a hidden child’s search into the past.

It was a day full of emotion, made warm by the welcome of the members of this Potager de la
Fantaisie, which lives up to its name.