Author Archives: Clare

Day 3: Meeting with Esther Senot, and visit to Mont Valérien – Tuesday 8 March

Clare Belmonte

There aren’t many pictures from the first half of the day, but the memory of the stories told that morning will last with me, and all of us, for the rest of our lives. We went to the “Union des Déportés d’Auschwitz” (Union of Deportees from Auschwitz), to speak with Esther Senot. Esther is a survivor of Birkenau extermination camp, and defied the overwhelming odds of surviving. This Union was created after those deported returned in 1945, as a place where there was a common understanding of the atrocities that they had been through. During the trial of Klaus Barbie in 1987, Elie Wiesel stated this sentiment very eloquently, “That is the problem: No one who has not experienced the event will ever be able to understand it.”

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Esther had a notably calm air about her as she told her story, pausing only throughout the most difficult personal struggles. Her family decided it had to leave Poland because there was an economic crisis, and rising in anti-Semitism in the 1920s. Many they knew had already moved to Paris when she and her family came. They lived a fairly normal life, without problems of discrimination or anti-Semitism, until 1934. For many, many immigrant families, it was easy to be relaxed and to feel like things were finally turning around – they were in France now, which at the time was relatively accepting of Jews. Unfortunately, a perfect storm was on the horizon.

Esther said that she and her family did not know that there was a war going on initially. I think this is important to keep in mind to contrast the times that we live in. The internet did not exist; people didn’t know things like they do now. This is very important to remember when thinking about peoples’ actions throughout the war. After Marshal Pétain came to power as head of the French State with its capital at Vichy, there was a shift in the atmosphere. At 12 years old, Esther was not allowed to play anymore, she had to carry her papers marked “juif”, she was only allowed on the last cars of the metro, she had a curfew (and not from her parents, as they had to obey the same one).

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From this point forward her life became very hard, her family started to be torn apart by the government. It started when her brothers were arrested by the French police, and sent to interment camps in France. On 16 July, 1942 – date of the infamous Rafle, or Roundup, of the Vel d’hiv – Esther’s mother father and brother were all taken, only she and her sister had escaped. She wasn’t with her sister though, she was alone. Esther describes her own strength, bravery, and perseverance in the most amazingly humble way. Yes, she is alone. Yes, she did just watch the rest of her family get arrested. Yes, she cannot find her sister. But how do you look for someone when you know they are hiding, and you yourself are trying to hide?

Esther spent a few months living with one of her escaped brothers (in Pau), and several more between orphanages. She had to switch orphanages often in order to have a place to stay, but eventually she was arrested. Ironically, she was imprisoned for a short time in a cell near the cell in which Marie-Antoinette was held during the French Revolution. Esther was sent to Drancy in August 1943, and deported to Auschwitz that September. Her time in Drancy was infinitely shorter than that of those sent there earlier in the war.

She was on the 59th convoy sent to extermination camps, the second sent that day. Each convoy held a minimum of 1000 people, a quota reached by adding children from a children’s home nearby, and taking elders from a retirement home. There were about 60 people in each cattle car, 1 pail to use as a toilet, 1 pail for drinking water. She describes both babies and elderly people dying throughout the three days in the cattle car, in the dark. They arrived somewhere in Poland, greeted by German bludgeons and vicious jumping dogs. This was the first time that many of those on the convoy saw German uniforms. They lined up one by one, and were passively commanded “à droite, à gauche, à droite, à gauche,” (right, left, right, left). This separated them into 106 women and 220 men. They were then marched to Auschwitz II – Birkenau.

Esther remembers the horrible the smells on her arrival. I can see from the way she has drawn up her face, she remembers. They finally arrived at the barracks, and were allowed to shower – yes, a real shower. She along with the other prisoners had to learn their numbers very quickly in Polish and German – if they didn’t respond with their number during roll call they were beaten.

Esther was 1 out of 106 women from her convoy that went into Birkenau. Esther was one of two from the 106 women that left. For Penn State perspective, that’s like 100 Thomas (a lecture classroom) that holds 726 students, reduced to thirteen people.

When Esther was done sharing her story with us, a man joined us to answer questions that we had for both of them. I did not know it at the time, but this man was Raphaël Esrael, the President of the Union des Déportés d’Auschwitz, and also a survivor of Auschwitz. Raphaël was arrested for forging false identity papers.

The feeling of sitting in a room with this woman and man who have faced hell is immensely humbling.  Both have lived through daily degradation that I try not to imagine. But what an immense honor to be sitting with them, talking to them, asking them questions! The story of their experiences can be recorded – whether on video, audio, or on paper. The opportunity to have human interaction and contact with them, though, is not going to last very much longer. They are both in their late 80s. They are both SO full of life. They are both so humble and find it so necessary to share their stories.

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