Juan Freund
On November 13, 2012, Guillermo Freund wrote to us through our website to tell us about his father, Juan Freund, who had been hidden by the Marcel network. And so the family grows! Juan is indeed on the list of the “Abadi children”. A few emails were exchanged, and a new story is told – he tells it to us.
Juan was born in Germany in 1929. His family was expelled to Poland and in 1938, crossing the whole of Germany, emigrated to Belgium and then France. His father was first interned in the Gurs camp before being sent to Drancy and then Auschwitz. Juan and his mother hid in Nice.
Two sisters, also Jewish, Françoise and Marianne Kron, hid the boy (and his mother?) for some time in Cannes; then “Monsieur Marcel” entrusted Juan to Father Blain at Don Bosco in Nice, a vocational school for boys. There he joined several children who were already boarders at the school. He remembers Father Lambert very well, whom he saw again in 1971.
Why did he leave Don Bosco? He does not know and has few memories of that period, but Juan says, “When I write, it’s more my imagination that builds a past…” and adds, quoting Boris Vian, “since I invented it, it must be true, because the present, in general, is false.” This may perhaps be linked to the Gestapo’s raid on the school.
Juan ended up in Saint-Chamond, near Saint-Étienne, in a “social rehabilitation centre” (?) run by the army, until the end of 1944. There again, one memory: Chief Rigaud.
Then we leap forward in time to 1948, when Juan arrived in Buenos Aires. He was 19, and he was offered a part in a play in French – and not just any play or any part: the role of Knock!!! And Moussa never knew…
Juan currently runs the Jewish Theatre of Buenos Aires. He has written a partly autobiographical play in Spanish entitled “Youth and Exile”, which he will try to have translated so that he can send it to us.
These few lines of introduction arouse our curiosity, and so many questions come to mind that we would love to ask him; patience – Juan will give us more details soon. He plans to come to France this year, and we will be delighted to welcome him.
In the attached photo, he is to the right of the Jesuit father, and he thinks the child on the left was also Jewish, but he does not remember him: perhaps he will recognise himself?