Emmanuel Macron testimony at the Memorial fo Shoah
Source: by Emmanuel Macron
I welcomed Emmanuel Macron to the Shoah Memorial on this day of the memory of the deportation. I showed him the Wall of Names. This wall where are engraved the names of the 76,000 Jews of France victims of the Nazi barbarism seconded alas by the French State. Here is the full text of the testimony of Emmanuel Macron candidate to the French Presidential elections leading his party " EN marche"
DESCRIPTION OF THE TRIBUTE BY EMMENAULE MACRON ON THE MEMORY TO THE VICTIMS OF THE SHOAH
"I showed him (photo) among the names of the 12 deportees of my family those of Ernest and Claire Heilbronn, aged 77 and 72, whose son Pierre was Death for France defending the Seine at the head of his troops the June 9, 40, and whose other son Jacques, my grandfather, was at 17 years of age one of the youngest decorated in the Great War.-----------------------------------
I also reminded him that French Jews as foreigners fought en masse from 39 to 45 for France. Several thousand Jewish Frenchmen died in combat in 1940. 26,000 foreign Jewish volunteers committed themselves in 39 out of 45,000 foreign volunteers. From 10% to 15% of the Resistance and the first FFL were of Jewish origin like 7% of the Companions of the Liberation and 17% of the resisters shot at the Mount Valérien. I reminded him of this love of France and of Freedom. I told him that in my family, as in many other Jewish families, out of 9 men of fighting age, 7 joined the resistance or the FFL, and 3 were dead for France. And it was with this legacy of Heroes and Martyrs that we were at his side so that on 7 May he was elected President of the Republic in the face of the candidate of the Vichy and Militia's heirs. That we were wholeheartedly and with all our strength at his side to prevent our great country France from flipping back into Fascism.--------------------------
Then we took him to the Archives, where we showed him very long documents.
First of all, the draft Statute of the Jews of October 3, 1940, corrected and cured by Petain's hand, and then the telegram from Dannecker to Eichmann informing him of Laval's request to deport Jewish children under the age of 16. We also showed him the order of mobilization of the Prefecture of Police of Paris of July 13, 1942, to mobilize and give instructions to the police forces and gendarmerie for the Rifle of the Vel d'Hiv. We finally presented him the lists of the convoys of deportation, the dig books of Drancy and the letters of deportees. We then went to the permanent exhibition on "The Jews of France during the Second World War". We showed him the main pedagogical tool of the Memorial, presented annually to more than 60,000 high school pupils and 5,000 teachers for education against racist and anti-Semitic hatred. We explained to him that we trained these audiences from the history of the three great genocides of the twentieth century (Armenian, Jewish, Tutsi) in order better to fight against prejudice and hatred of the other.
We told him through the visit of the museum, the history of French Jews settled in France for 2,000 years, but also the history of anti-Semitism beginning with the crusades in the eleventh century, to continue with planning and organization Of the genocide. And we concluded by the Resistance of the Jews and by the Righteous. He then gathered in the Children's Memorial where we present Serge Klarsfeld photos of 4,000 of the 11,000 Jewish children deported.
He finally gathered himself in the crypt of remembrance and signed the guestbook where he wrote:
"Here are so many names
Here are so many lives
Here are our history, our memories, our children
We will never forget.
We will give them back the faces, the thickness of their existence.
This struggle is that of truth. Of their dignity, our dignity.
What happened will never be forgotten. For what has ever happened must never return.
Their lives, the Shoah, is our Viaticum for eternity.
I will always be at your side in this endless battle.
In friendly tribute."
