Last letters before the death camps: exhibition at the Drancy memorial

“My dear Antoinette, I warn you that tomorrow Monday morning I am leaving Drancy and I am leaving for an unknown destination”, begins a man named Georges Benedikt on September 13, 1942, in a finely inclined handwriting. Interned in Drancy (Seine-Saint-Denis) a year earlier, he died in Auschwitz.

Some 200 missives collected from the families of victims form the exhibition “We are leaving tomorrow. Letters from Vel d’Hiv internees to Auschwitz”.

Its opening to the public, from March 27 to December 22, coincides with the 80th anniversary of the first deportation convoy of Jews from France, which left Drancy for Auschwitz on March 27, 1942, with a stopover in Compiègne (Oise). The Vel d’Hiv roundup will follow in July.

Practical information on the exhibition

“a last goodbye, a farewell, and recommendations“

These handwritten letters represent the only link of the internees with the outside world. On a small format card, in tight lines on a sheet or scribbled on the back of a book cover as the paper is so rare, the words crowd to express the anguish, the urgency, the despair and the tearing of separated hearts .

“Most letters are a last goodbye, a farewell, and recommendations”, summarizes Karen Taieb, head of the archives of the Drancy Shoah Memorial, co-curator of the exhibition alongside historian Tal Bruttmann.

“Writing is essential for the survival of internees, for giving and receiving news, and for receiving parcels” in an attempt to ward off destitution, she explains. Internment took place in free and occupied zones, and detainees sometimes spent years there.

To escape the censorship offices, which redact passages, ask to write “bigger next time” under penalty of prohibition, a clandestine circuit exists. But then you have to pay the gendarmes, who practice inflation.

“I am sending you today my 21st letter and perhaps the last, for two reasons, the first is that I have no more money, because the letters cost 150 francs today (…) and second reason is that we are expecting the deportation any day now”, explained in 1944 an internee at Drancy.

Until the end in the convoys to the East, writing is imperative. Above all, don’t forget those you love.

“in a few days we are dead“

“My Darling, leaving this morning for the East, I (…) send you and all the loved ones I left behind my best kisses. Goodbye ! Goodbye maybe”, hastily writes a woman who threw her letter off the train and will never return from Auschwitz.

Some try to reassure loved ones as if to reassure themselves. “My little Mum, I’m leaving and I’m in high spirits”assures Jacques Dreyfus to his mother, before being deported.

“Attention ! We were deceived and lied to (…) Write to Vittel that in a few days we are dead”, warns a man who threw his scribbled note from the car, not knowing if it would reach its recipient. Railway workers or anonymous people have sometimes allowed them to be transported to their destination.

“do not send parcels or correspondence”

With rare exceptions, almost all the authors have disappeared. To relatives without news, on the lookout for a sign of life, the French authorities send the same formula. “Leaving for an unknown destination, send no parcels or correspondence”.

So far removed from current communications via interposed screens, these “good eves letters” are “a treasure”, is moved Karen Taieb. Between the lines, you can guess the hands that touched them to write personal stories. The exhibition makes it a great polyphony.

par Fanny LATTACH

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