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Alaïs, granddaughter of the French resistance fighter Jean-Baptiste
From Quimper to Dachau
Alaïs, granddaughter of the French resistance fighter Jean-Baptiste
From Quimper to Dachau
It's going to be a long road. We're getting organized. We're planning the route. We're packing our things.
But ultimately, nothing can prepare you for such an encounter.
The Dachau concentration camp.
As a child, I remember my grandfather banging his fist on the table to make me finish eating my green beans.
Gone too soon, today I'm going far away to find him. Far away in the horror, far from our homes, far from all humanity.
Jean-Baptiste and his brother Henri are arrested in France for acts of resistance.
Initially imprisoned at Eysses prison, they will later be deported to the Dachau camp.
The road is long by car, but we suddenly realize how lucky we are to be able to breathe, to take breaks, to eat.
The road in a cattle car is no longer long; it disappears.
To make way for hell, it becomes endless.
To try and gradually annihilate the spark of humanity and hope that should always sustain us.
To make way for hell, it becomes endless.
To try and gradually annihilate the spark of humanity and hope that should always sustain us.
"ARBEIT MACHT FREI."
And silence falls, the outside world ceases to exist, and the inside, the soul and humanity, are crushed.
Trampled, killed, raped, experimented on, beaten, degraded, until they cease to exist.
Exterminate.
We can only wander through this vague memory of horror, now a museum, lost before
so much hatred and violence.
We suffocate. We struggle to breathe.
I realize that my grandfather survived, that from what he endured, we were born, my
father, then us, my brother and sister. We are here with him today.
By his side.
From horror, life ultimately triumphed. But Henri, his brother, who died a few days before liberation, is still there. In that camp.
He never left.
He was married and the father of three young children.
Life, despite everything, went on.
Now, the lives and stories of the survivors are about to end.
Soon they will be gone. Soon they will no longer be able to bear witness.
Soon they will no longer be able to enlighten us.
It is up to us to take up the mantle.
For life. For humanity. For dignity.
For my grandfather, for all of you.
I thank the International Dachau Committee for inviting us to this commemoration
of the 80th anniversary of liberation.
We were warmly welcomed. The testimonies of Mario Candotto, Bud Gahs, Jean Lafaurie, Abba Naor, and Leslie Rosenthal will remain forever etched in my memory, and I will strive to continue sharing them so that they are never forgotten.
Alaïs, granddaughter of the French resistance fighter Jean-Baptiste.
grandfather Jean Baptiste
Henri, his brother, died: 08/02/1945 in Dachau
