News 2022
Letter from Madame Zola: A family commitment
October 31, 2022
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When Odette died in 1997, those close to her, including our president Andrée Poch-Karsenti, recovered many documents that Odette had carefully kept. Odette and Moussa Abadi thus left us a good number of archive documents (index cards, letters, photos…). Many of these documents have been entrusted to the Mémorial de la Shoah, others to the BnF, and others have remained with some of the hidden children – Andrée, Jeannette, Marthoune…
Recently, while sorting through some papers, Andrée Poch-Karsenti came across a letter signed by Alexandrine Zola, the wife of Émile Zola.
Membership appeal
October 28, 2022
Dear Children and Friends,
As you know, our association works to keep alive the memory of Odette and Moussa and of their work. We strive to keep communicating, to take part in events and to organise others so that forgetting does not replace remembrance.
This association is carried by the commitment of a few volunteers, but some things have a cost. We must maintain our presence on the Internet, travel to uphold the values the association defends, look after Odette and Moussa’s grave, organise each year the commemoration you take part in…
For all these reasons, we need you. We need you to help us preserve the memory of the Marcel network and of the women and men who brought it into being. Thanks to them, 527 Jewish children were saved from Nazi barbarity. But it is thanks to you that these children and their rescuers will not be forgotten.
As every year, we appeal to your generosity.
Below you will find the membership form allowing you to join the association.
Thank you for your support!
2022 commemoration for Odette and Moussa
October 28, 2022
Despite the passing of time, there were still some twenty of us gathered around Odette and Moussa on Sunday, October 23, 2022 at Montparnasse cemetery.
Every year, some people are unable to join us for family or health reasons. Yet we keep our little boat of remembrance afloat thanks to a solid handful of faithful members and sometimes new ones. This year we had the pleasure of welcoming someone whose family sheltered a 15-year-old Jewish girl for a year and a half, allowing her to escape the tragic fate that might have been hers. We will tell you this story soon.
Michèle Merowka awarded the medal of the National Order of Merit
October 15, 2022
AMEJDAM, the Association for the Memory of the Jewish Children Deported from the Alpes-Maritimes, and Les Enfants et Amis Abadi are two friendly partner associations, both concerned with children. While our association keeps alive the memory of those who saved children, AMEJDAM, represented by its President, Michèle Merowka, works to ensure that the deported children are not forgotten. After several years of research in school archives, the association has also listed all the Jewish children deported from the Alpes-Maritimes. Four hundred of them, under the age of sixteen, were murdered.
W at the Théâtre du Soleil
October 9, 2022
based on Georges Perec’s W, or the Memory of Childhood
For once, we are bringing to your attention the play W, directed by Olivier Balazuc at the Théâtre du Soleil.
Who is W? Or what is W? An imaginary island where the Olympic ideal turns into a programme of mass destruction? Or perhaps a double V: that of the rue Vilin in Paris, where Georges Perec lived the first five years of his life, and that of Villard-de-Lans, where he was sent in 1942 to escape the worst?
A player with words, a juggler of letters, signs and coincidences, Georges Perec interweaves three narratives – fictional, autobiographical and ethnographic – with no apparent link but shedding light on one another, and tries to trace back the thread of his memory, severed by “History with its capital H” (its great axe), and to turn the unspeakable and the pain into a creative process. To mark the 40th anniversary of Georges Perec’s death, this adaptation of his masterpiece is being presented on a Paris stage for the first time.
from October 7 to 23, 2022
Conception and adaptation Isabelle Gazonnois and Olivier Balazuc
Direction, set design, lighting Olivier Balazuc
Video and live music Fred Roumagne
Stage management Fabrice Lacombe
With Olivier Balazuc, Isabelle Gazonnois, Fred Roumagne
Day of remembrance in tribute to the Durandy family, to the Resistance in the hinterland and to the “Righteous Among the Nations” in SAUSSES
September 10, 2022
This year, the village of Sausses is hosting the day of commemoration of the Resistance and the Righteous of its valleys. The association Les Enfants et Amis Abadi has been invited to this day organised by Infos des Vallées. Our president, Andrée Poch-Karsenti, will speak there to tell her story and that of the Marcel network.
The day will be held on September 18, 2022. Through lectures and ceremonies, you will be able to discover or rediscover the History of these heroes and honour their memory, like that of the family of Yves DURANDY, who protected a family from Nazi barbarity in SAUSSES in 1943.
The day is an opportunity to immerse yourself in the atmosphere of those years. Even the dress code invites you to travel in time: berets, braces, flowery dresses and hats give the village streets a 1940s air.
4th Days of the Righteous in Thonon
July 12, 2022
On June 17, 2022, we were in Thonon to meet young people from Lausanne and Thonon with LICRA, as part of the 4th Franco-Swiss Days of the Righteous.
Workshop 2, led by Florence Boudoussier, Patrick Weill and Andrée Poch-Karsenti, brought together 12 pupils, including 2 Swiss girls
First the pupils were able to express their emotions on hearing the tragic stories of Jacques CHARMATZ, a hidden Jewish child, and Mohamed ABDEL AZZIZ, a refugee from Darfur.
Death of Gabriel Garran
May 10, 2022
It is with deep sadness that we have learnt of the death of Gabriel Garran on May 6.
We had met him two years ago. He welcomed us into his flat, where you had to make your way between books and cardboard folders bearing the handwritten titles of the plays they contained. Between walls covered with posters of plays he had directed and thoughts jotted on loose sheets, we listened to the memories of this man of the theatre with the kindly gaze. He humbly told us about the moments that had shaped his life.
“Right to the end of his life, his vitality was impressive. He moved from one founding idea to another, which made this theatre an exceptional place. He was also the one who introduced improvisation to France”, the theatre’s director, Marie-José Malis, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). “He was a very discreet person, stubborn, courageous, innovative. He leaves an immense legacy to French-language theatre.”
The poet has gone, taking his memories with him and leaving us his memory.
Farewell, Gabriel!
Inauguration of the “Pierre and Hélène Gagnier” Centre in Nice
May 6, 2022
On May 1, 2022, the Centre Protestant de Rencontre in Nice took the name “Centre Pierre et Hélène Gagnier”.
The United Protestant Church of Nice–Saint-Esprit has always kept alive the memory of Pastor Pierre Gagnier and his wife Hélène, née Aubanel, in each of its choices and actions. Its representatives wished to pass this memory on to future generations by giving their names to the meeting centre at 19 rue Maccarani.
For the occasion, many of us gathered on Sunday, May 1 at the church on boulevard Victor Hugo. Representatives of the City of Nice, the Regional Council, religious bodies of all faiths, associations and others came together to mark the moment.
Pierre and Hélène Gagnier contributed to the work of the Marcel network, which saved 527 Jewish children during the Second World War. They were able to act because they were in Nice between 1941 and 1953, when Pastor Pierre Gagnier served as minister of the Reformed Church of Nice. It was for all his work during this period that the Protestant Church of Nice wished to honour his memory by giving his name to the meeting centre. His wife Hélène is naturally associated with it, as she was by his side throughout his life and gave him active and unconditional support.
The ceremony took place in two parts. The first brought everyone together inside the church to hear speeches by the United Protestant Church of Nice, the Gagnier family, the association Les Enfants et Amis Abadi and the City of Nice. The second part took place outside, in front of the Protestant meeting centre.
Yom HaShoah 2022: Reading of the names
April 26, 2022
For Yom HaShoah, the date chosen by the State of Israel to commemorate the victims of the Shoah and the heroes of the Jewish Resistance during the Second World War, an uninterrupted 24-hour public reading takes place, day and night. Of the 76,000 names inscribed on the Wall of Names, the names of the people deported from France are read out one by one. Some 200 people – former deportees, relatives, volunteers, children… – take turns reading, from the lists in Serge Klarsfeld’s Memorial of the Deportation (published by the FFDJF), the names of “those of whom only the name remains” (Simone Veil).
This year, on Wednesday 27 and Thursday, April 28, 2022, 31 convoys will be read at Yom HaShoah: from convoy 38 to 73.
Our president, Andrée Poch-Karsenti, will read 2 convoys there: those on which her family, including her parents, were deported.
2nd Shoah Generations Forum: intergenerational meetings on the theme “living after the Shoah”
April 13, 2022
From July 2 to 4, 2022
A friendly family event bringing together Shoah survivors, Jewish fighters, hidden children, the Righteous of France and all their descendants.
After the huge success of the first Shoah Generations Forum in Paris in February 2019, which brought together more than 600 people of all generations at the Mémorial de la Shoah, and after two years of pandemic, the Mémorial de la Shoah is once again hosting the Shoah Generations Forum.
Meetings, sharing, workshops, lectures, dinners, shows and visits: here is the programme of this second edition, with a host of speakers. These days of exchange are for all the generations who, marked by the Shoah, feel the need to come together. Growing up after the Shoah, returning to families, the echoes of the Shoah in one’s life, family heritage, passing on in all its forms, remembering and preventing – all these subjects will be addressed.
Commemoration of the deported children of the primary school in rue de Romainville
February 5, 2022
As every year, January 27 is THE day of commemoration of the Deportation. For the second time, Madame Armelle Gonzalez and Madame Vanessa Lucas, respectively head teacher and teacher at the primary school in rue de Romainville in Paris, did me the honour and pleasure of inviting me to take part.
This January 27, 2022 took on a greater, stronger resonance for me. Is it the effect of the weight of the years that accompany me, and of their heaviness?
Victor HAÏM (
)
January 16, 2022
Victor Haïm was a hidden child – not by the Marcel network, but a child who nonetheless had to flee Nazi barbarity to save his life. A playwright, screenwriter, actor and friend of Moussa’s in his day, Victor is an active member of our association.
We went to meet Victor at his home, camera ready. Passionate and committed, he shares with us part of his story, as well as his opinions – always frank and sometimes biting.