Mackenzie Moon
Under the Vichy regime, approximately 76,000 Jews were deported—11,400 of whom were children. Today, only a fraction of those who survived deportation under German occupation remain. Meeting a handful of these 76,000 people during our time in Paris, the only ones left to bear witness to the genocidal catastrophe that we know as the Holocaust, was an experience that is difficult to put into words.
At the Mémorial de la Shoah, we had the privilege of meeting survivor Bertrand Herz. At first glance, 86-year-old Bertrand Herz looked like he could be my grandfather. He bears no external signs that mark him as a survivor of a German concentration camp and of the infamous “death marches”, a massive movement of prisoners across Germany as part of the Nazis’ last attempt at escape from impending Allied takeover. Born to a non-practicing Jewish family, Bertrand was nevertheless arrested and sent on one of the last cattle wagon convoys to the Buchenwald concentration camp in Northern Germany. He described the horrendous and dehumanizing conditions at the camp, from which his father would never return. Before being rescued by the American army, Bertrand lived to experience the death marches, during which he walked fifteen hours a day. For almost two decades, Bertrand couldn’t talk about what he lived through. Even today, he admits to lingering anger, maintaining that he “never forgave a single person and never will.”
Although Bertrand was arrested by the Gestapo, many other Jewish families were apprehended by the French police or by the gendarmerie. In our discussions with Philippe Boukara, a historian and outreach coordinator at the Mémorial, he emphasized the importance of Holocaust education in French schools and at the museum itself, which features a devastating wall of photos of children of all ages deported from France to their deaths. As we learned from Philippe, the museum also hosts a mandatory training program for new French police officers. During their training, the officers are instructed to “disobey any orders that are contrary to human rights” — an order that presents an interesting paradigm of obedience and disobedience within a bureaucracy that has an ugly stain in its history.
In our experiences with Bertrand Herz and other survivors throughout the week, we saw many examples of varied reactions of French non-Jews to Jewish persecution under the Nazi regime. Some rose to the moral challenge, risking everything, even their lives, to help even just one person in need. Yet others shut the door, turning a blind eye to the persecution of their neighbors in order to focus on their own problems.
I couldn’t help but reflect on how I would have responded if I had lived through this time in history: would I have responded in the same way that Bertrand’s non-Jewish friends did, wearing a star bravely in the face of danger to encourage a friend? At a time when immigration is on the forefront of many national agendas, these historical and ethical questions are becoming increasingly important to our daily lives. Our time in Paris with survivors like Bertrand Herz has highlighted the perils of indifference in the face of ethical dilemmas. As renowned writer and Auschwitz survivor Elie Wiesel aptly puts it, “Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil” (interview with Alvin P. Sanoff, “One Must Not Forget,” U.S. News & World Report 27 Oct. 1986). These firsthand accounts also highlight the necessity of taking up the duty of remembrance by sharing these experiences, fulfilling survivor Esther Senot’s final charge to us: “Tell my story, because I will no longer be able to do so.”