Mémorial de la Shoah, Paris France

Posted on by Thor

The Mémorial de la Shoah in Paris France is Europe’s primary Holocaust research and remembrance center, dedicated to the 76,000 French Jewish victims, including 11,000 children, deported to camps like Birkenau, Sobibor and Auschwitz between 1942 and 1944. The memorial was inaugurated in 2005, it features a permanent museum, archives, a wall of names, and a crypt. Many of the rooms were dark showcasing detailed history of the atrocities of the Nazi regime.

Shoah is another name for the Holocaust. During the Shoah (1940–1944), approximately 77,000 of the 350,000 Jews in France were deported and murdered, mostly in Auschwitz. While the French Vichy Regime collaborated with Nazi occupiers in persecuting, registering, and interning Jews. The Vel’ d’Hiv roundup which resulted in the arrest of 13,152 Jews in Paris by French police, including 5,802 women and 4,051 children being sent to Dracy.

About 75% of the Jewish population survived, a high rate for occupied Europe, due to the efforts of local, religious, and underground organizations. Children were hidden in non-Jewish homes. Jewish underground organizations, alongside non-Jewish efforts, played a crucial role in saving lives.

In all, the Shoah in France victimized close to 80,000 Jews. Three thousand Jews died in French-run internment camps like Gurs and Drancy.

I was fascinated by a series of stations where oral histories could be heard from survivors of the Shoah. I listened to several interviews with Larissa Cain. She was born in 1932 in Poland to family with deep rooted Jewish traditions. Her mother and father belonged to a community deep rooted in Zionist ideals. She spent her early childhood in Warsaw, surrounded by books, languages, and a strong sense of community. Her parents ran a candy shop in the Jewish quarter. This small shop helped keep the family from absolute starvation. The family was confined to a small two-room apartment shared with seven other people, they faced extreme conditions: hunger, disease, and relentless oppression.

In July 1942, the first deportations to Treblinka began from the ghetto. The Nazis came to the building and started searching floor to floor. There was not enough time to get dresses so her mom held Larissa and they sat quietly on the bed in the top floor. Though young Larissa knew to stay quiet. Her life depended on it. For some unknown reason the Nazi soldier stopped on the floor below them and went back down the steps without searching the top floor. This arbitrary moment of impatience meant their survival on that day. Her mother was later arrested in her workplace and disappeared. She would never see her mother again.

Larissa is a survivor of the Nazi established Warsaw Ghetto. She is one of the few children to survive the Warsaw Ghetto destruction. She was rescued by the Polish Resistance at the age of 10. She lived hiding until the end of the war. Her father also escaped the ghetto, but their paths diverged. She never saw him again.

I don’t know if this was a purposeful design, but it is very hard to exit the memorial. Iron bars block all the obvious exit and entry points. I finally had to ask a member of the staff where the exit was. It was to the right just past the wall of names of those murdered by the Nazis engraved in granite. But even so I could not figure out which door to use. There was a green security light on one of the doors and I remembered having to wait for a green light to enter. I opened that door and discovered that I was entering a guard booth. The guard was annoyed that I had invaded his space. He angrily pointed to another unmarked door.

Paris France: Foch’s Tomb

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This Tomb of Marshal Foch is in the Cathedral of Saint-Louis of the Invalids. Also in the cathedral is the Tomb of Napoleon. Adolph Hitler saw himself much like Napoleon conquering all of Europe. The Dome of the Invalids is the tallest church building in Paris France at a height of 351 ft.

Ferdinand Foch’s tomb has a really nice statue of soldiers carrying his body still clutching a sword. Foch was a French General and Marshal of France. He was born in 1851 and died in 1999. He distinguished himself as the Supreme Allied Commander on the Western Front during the First World War. Foch became Supreme Allied Commander in late March of 1918 in the face of the all-out German spring offensive. He successfully coordinated the French, British and American efforts. He stopped the German offensive and launched a war-winning counterattack. In November 1918, Marshal Foch accepted the German cessation of hostilities and was present at the Armistice of November 11, 1918.

Foch was seen as a master of the Napoleonic school of military thought. It seems appropriate therefore that his tomb would be within yards of Napoleon’s tomb.

The Cathedral of Saint-Louis of the Invalids was not significantly damaged during WWII. While many cities in France were heavily bombed, Paris was declared an open city and escaped major strategic bombing during the conflict, preserving its major landmarks.

With Paris under German occupation, there were severe food shortages, strict curfews, constant surveillance, and systematic persecution of Jewish residents. Life was characterized by long lines, a thriving black market, German soldiers occupying luxury hotels, and a tense, silent atmosphere where the swastika flew over major landmarks. The French government moved to Vichy France.

A 9 p.m. curfew was enforced, and only Germans were allowed to drive cars. While many Parisians struggled to survive, some collaborated, while others joined the Resistance. I am left wondering how I might act under such circumstances, and yet the situation isn’t that abstract as history repeats itself. The Gestapo operated with extreme brutality, leading to widespread fear of arrest and torture

The Nazis, supported by French authorities, systematically registered, arrested, and deported Jews to concentration camps, including the 1942 Vélodrome d’Hiver Roundup, which was a mass arrest of over 13,000 Jews in Paris by French police, acting on behalf of German authorities. Victims were held in brutal conditions at the Vélodrome d’Hiver cycling stadium before being deported to Drancy, then Auschwitz.

 

April 19, 1945: Iserlohn Germany

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On April 19, 1945, my father, 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken and his C-Company of the 75th Infantry Division were relieved by elements of the 313th Infantry Division. The 75th was then trucked to several locations in the Ruhr Valley for reassembly, and then sent to Iserlohn Germany. The town east of Iserlohn was Hemer which was the site of Stalag VIA, a large POW Camp. Rather than fighting a battle after the successful capture of the Industrial Ruhr Pocket, the 75th was now tasked with occupation duty.

On the evening of 13 April 1945, the United States Army began bombing the city of Iserlohn Germany. The bombing continued for three days. The bombardment lasted nearly three days but caused only minor damage.

The events of WWII are indelibly etched in the minds of the residents of Iserlohn who lived through the years of the Nazi inhuman racial ideology. The Nazi drive for conquest and annihilation cost countless lives. The exact number of Iserlohn residents who lost their lives due to Nazi doctrine are unknown. Municipal statistics report 776 fallen soldiers and 137 civilians killed by air raids and artillery fire. These numbers do not account for those who died in captivity, nor the number of Jewish residents who were deported from Iserlohn and murdered in concentration camps.

A synagogue was built in Iserlohn in 1829. It was destroyed on the Night of Broken Glass November 9, 1938. The building had to be demolished. The first Jewish deportation began on October 28, 1938. In 1941 the Jewish community that remained was moved to Kluse 18 and deported from there to to the industrial extermination camps of Auschwitz and Theresienstadt Germany.

Because of its metal industry, Iserlohn produced war-relevant products, including brass components, specialized light metal castings for ammunition, and hardware for Stick hand grenades. With every industrial building converted for armaments production. The town was a prime target for Allied bombing.

Iserlohn was therefore a prime target of Allied Air Strikes. The need to take protective measures for the population became apparent by 1943. Construction of the air-raid shelter tunnel under the Supreme City Church began at the end of 1943. This church is an emblem of the city of Iserlohn and also part of its coat of arms. The Supreme City Church in Iserlohn, which dates back to roughly 1350, survived the destruction of World War II.

With an originally planned length of 500 to 550 meters, the air raid shelter was supposed to be able to accommodate up to 6,600 people. By the end of the war, the tunnel had only reached a length of around 200 meters offering refuge for 2,000 residents.
Iserlohn was home to 5 military barracks and other military installations. The old style half-timbered homes were particularly vulnerable to Allied incendiary bombings. The town had 46,000 residents in 1943.

Prisoners of war from Stalag VI-A in Hemer Germany were used for construction. These same workers were not allowed to enter the tunnel during the Allied air raid attacks. Jews were also prohibited from entering the shelter. The Forced Laborers, many of them Russian and Polish, were literally worked to death. The forced laborers were expected to drill and chisel into the rock for 5 meters a week. Drilling operations had to stop due to the appearance of fissures and cracks in the clay. The loose clay and slate offered  unreliable protection against bombings. With only room for one third of the residents, fights broke out for the right to enter the tunnels, resulting in overcrowding.

At midday on April 16, 1945, in Iserlohn, a Jagdtiger Tank Battalion led by Wehrmacht commander Albert Ernst, assembled for its final roll call before surrender to the U.S. 99th Infantry Division. American Major Boyd McCune lead the negotiations, which were eased by the fact that Ernst spoke English   . The Germans lay all their weapons on the pavement of the Iserlohn city market square as the Americans watched.

The air raid shelter construction ended on April 16, 1945 when American forces occupied the city.

Defiant Requiem

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Rafael Schächter was a talented composer but the Nazi party would not let him perform. He struggled to survive but teaching piano lessons to young pupils.

Then he got new that he was being imprisoned at a work camp called Terezin. One of the few worldly possessions he took was the score to Verdi’s Requiem.

Conditions at the camp were horrible with prisoners having to work more that 10 hours a day for the Nazi party. There was never enough food. Hope was lost. Rafael realized that music is food for the soul and he began to recruit singers to join a chorus that sang each evening in a cold damp basement. Singers entered a new reality. One survivor remembered that her stomach didn’t seem to grumble when she sang. Music was a form of rebellion against imprisonment. Human dignity was regained if only for a moment.

The Verdi Reqium is a complex choral piece to perform. Rafael  molded the amateur chorus teaching them the Latin lyrics by rote. Three times Rafael had to reconstitute the choir as members were transported to Auschwitz. Then came the moment he had hoped for. The Red Cross was being shown the prison camp by the Nazi’s. The camp was scrubbed and made to look like new. Signs were made to a library, and post office, which did not exist. Swing sets and a soccer field were added.The sick and dying were shuttered behind closed doors. The sickest were sent to Auchwitz and murdered. Had the red cross veered from the tour and opened just one door they would have witnessed unimaginable horrors.

Rafael was going to  have his choir sing directly to the Nazi officers what they could never say. The requiem is a treat against the unjust. The words are in Latin but they could be interpreted to condemn the Nazis to one day face their punishment for their crimes.” that day will dissolve the world in ashes, as David and the Sibyl prophesied. How great will be the terror, when the Judge comes who will smash everything completely!”

Half or the chorus was carted off in cattle cars to Auschwitz right before the performance. The hope was that the red cross would see the performance as defiance against the Nazi captors. The red cross only saw what the Nazis wanted them to see.

After the red cross left, the swing sets vanished as did all the children. 15,000 children lived in the work camp, of whom about 90% perished after deportation. In the following weeks the entire chorus was shipped off the Auschwitz in cattle cars. Rafael survived Auschwitz and several other concentration camps but died on a death march just months before the Nazi’s surrendered at the end of the war.

If Terazin wasn’t pure hell then it was the waiting room for hell. The prisoners were surrounded by man’s worst but they were determined to demonstrate mans best through music.

Defiant Requiem is being performed at the Dr Phillips Center for the Performing Arts. In Steinmetz Hall 445 South Magnolia Avenue, Orlando FL.

Saturday, September 14, 2024
Show time: 7:30 p.m.
Tickets from: $49
Age advisory: Recommended age 13+

The run time for the concert is 2 hours with no intermission.