Ginette Kolinka
Ginette Kolinka | |
---|---|
Born | Ginette Cherkasky 4 February 1925 |
Known for | Holocaust survivor |
Spouse | Albert Kolinka (1913-1993) |
Children | Richard Kolinka |
Parents |
|
Relatives | Roman Kolinka (grandson) |
Ginette Kolinka (born Ginette Cherkasky) is a French
Biography
Provenance and early years
Ginette Cherkasky was born in the family home at
War
Ginette Cherkasky was 14 when
Escape to the south
It was almost certainly during July 1942 that, with her parents and younger brother, Ginette Cherkasky hastily set off towards the southern half of France, which at this stage could still be identified without excessive irony as the "free zone". The previous evening an official from the préfecture had turned up at the door. The official had come across a reference to the family in the préfecture files, and had come to warn them of something contained in them: "You are Jews and communists, you should leave Paris!" Léon Cherkasky simply nodded: it is not clear whether he had even recognised their unexpected visitor. Later that evening he made his way to the café at the nearby "Carreau du Temple" (covered market), a well-known meeting place where it was possible to find people willing and able to help refugees. He procured forged false identity papers, and before they left in the morning made sure that the children had all memorised their new names. Cherkasky insisted that the family should split into smaller groups of three or four, each of which travelled separately by different routes. There are hints that initially the children - at least the youngest of them, , accompanying their parents - thought they were embarking on some sort of "grand vacation": reality was very much grimmer. Armed with forged false identity documents they settled in Avignon.[4][6][8][9][10]
Arrest
During the lunch hour on 13 March 1944 Ginette, her father Léon Cherkasky, her twelve year old brother Gilbert Cherkasky and her fourteen year old nephew, still in his school uniform, were arrested by a group of Gestapo and collaborationist militia men. Someone had denounced them to the authorities. It seems that the arresting officers had only "come for the men", but Ginette was also arrested because she protested over what was being done. Ginette herself had almost stayed outside and missed lunch entirely, enjoying the marvellous weather, but had been persuaded to join the family meal by her sister, who had pointed out that they were having roast veal for lunch. Her mother missed seeing the arrests, having been upstairs ill in bed at the time.[1][8]
They were held initially at a detention facility in Avignon, and then, "for between ten and fourteen days", at the recently completed prison at Les Baumettes (Marseille). She noticed that everyone on the transfer bus between the two facilities was apparently Jewish. The boy seated next to her also carried clear scars of recent torture. The palms of his hands had been burned and his finger nails ripped out. It turned out that he was both Jewish and a Résistance activist. The horrors of Auschwitz still lay in the future, and Ginette was silently relieved that her only "crime" was that of being Jewish. At Les Baumettes she was separated from her father, brother and nephew, and placed in a cell with three other girls.[citation needed][8]
She was then taken to the nearby railway station where she saw with her male family members. Her father was chained to her little brother with handcuffs and her nephew was chained to Szlama Rozenberg, the father of Marceline. (Marceline Rozenberg, better known to posterity by her married name as Marceline Loridan-Ivens was a fellow detainee who later became a life-long friend.[11]) The women were kept separate from the men, both on the platform and on the train, however, and the railway carriage in which they travelled was closely supervised by police and German soldiers. The train journey from Marseille to Lyon felt long, but they were not tied down for it. At Lyon they were transferred to a bus to Drancy, a suburb in the already sprawling conurbation to the north of Paris, felt (and was) longer.[8]
Drancy
The
Between 1941 and 1944 the site was repurposed as the Drancy internment camp, initially administered by the French police service and later under the direct control of German Nazi paramilitaries. The bus transporting Ginette Cherkasky arrived at the formidable facility on 31 March 1944, by which time a well-established Shoah-related routine was in place, whereby Drancy had become the transit camp for processing Jews from across France for onward transportation to death camps in the east of Germany.[8][12]
Auschwitz
Six weeks later, on 13 April 1944, a train carrying 1,499 or 1,500 Jews (sources differ) set off from Bobigny Station, near to the Drancy camp. The train was composed of wagons originally intended for transporting livestock. This was the transport identified in records as "Convoi (Transport) n° 71". There were 624 males, 854 females and 22 whose genders went unrecorded. On 16 April 1944 the train reached the former goods station beside the Auschwitz concentration camp. 165 men from it were selected for forced labour and tattooed appropriately with their sequentially allocated numbers. 91 women were also picked out as labourers. Ginette was tattooed with the number "78599". The others were sent to the extermination facility to be killed by gassing. Her father, Léon Cherkasky, aged 61 and her brother Gilbert Cherkasky, aged 12, were among those immediately sent to be murdered.[7] There was a truck waiting on the platform for those considered too weak to walk to the killing chambers. Unaware at this stage of its destination, Ginette urged her father and young brother to grab a place on the truck. They did so, and therefore were among the first to arrive at the killing location.[13] The fate of Ginette's 14 year-old nephew remains unknown.[4][14]
Among the young women picked out from "Convoi n° 71" as labourers, Ginette Cherkasky is/was not the only one who survived the war and has subsequently come to wider public attention. Others include or have included Simone Veil, Marceline Loridan-Ivens, Anne-Lise Stern, Odette Spingarn and Léa Feldblum.[13][15][16]
An early shock at the camp was the total absence of any sort of personal privacy. The nineteen year old had never seen even her sisters without clothes. Now she was forced to stand together with dozens of strange women stark naked. The slaughter of war had left Germany desperately short of working-age population, and much of the administration and upkeep at the concentration camp was carried out by trusted inmates. It was fellow prisoners who tattooed her number on her skin and shaved her head. After that she was given clothes - just an old sweater and a skirt: no underwear. Then they were sent to the shower. A few drops of water trickled out: "We looked at each other, naked, ashamed, skulls shaved, trembling and degraded. Humiliated."[4][8][a]
Further tortures awaited the new arrivals when they came to the barrack hut where they were to be accommodated. Discipline was enforced by overseers and "kapos", fellow prisoners who had gained the confidence of the guards and thereby achieved promotion in the camp hierarchy. They beat the "junior" inmates at every opportunity. Violence was part of everyday life. If anyone failed to stand precisely in line for a roll call, if someone fell ill or was too weakened to work, or simply from the sadistic urges of the perpetrators, the outcome was physical assault". Half a century later, after she felt able to write it all down, Kolinka recalled that she had been "beaten the whole time, all through the day, for nothing, nothing, nothing".[b] The other searing memory was the constant intense hunger. A piece of bread was precious and, if not eaten at once, must be well hidden. "Everyone stole from everyone".[4][8]
Bergen-Belsen
After six months, during October or November 1944 Ginette Cherkasky was transferred to the
Final transport
One morning at the end of April 1945 all the inmates were called together, nightshift and dayshift workers together. Anglo-American and Soviet armies, approaching from west and east, were drawing closer. The camp was to be closed: a roll call was taken. Two people were missing. After a long wait her friend Marceline Rozenberg was found with one other inmate, well hidden but not well enough to remain undetected. The soldiers overseeing the evacuation, already highly nervous, were further enraged by the hiatus. Once they had been loaded into the railway wagons there was more space than might have been expected. The train started to move, but it kept stopping. Evidently their transport to ... wherever, was a low priority. At one of the stops she heard train doors open. The soldiers left the train. The prisoners were on their own, without food and without water. The journey continued, as before, with frequent stops. Munitions trains and trains transporting military personnel were receiving priority at junctions. Without food or drink, prisoners, including Ginette became increasingly ill. There were deaths. At the end of a seven day journey the train made its final halt. This time there was again noise from outside the wagon of soldiers shouting and wagon doors being opened. She managed to emerge from the wagen and, unable to stand, crawl along beside the track trying to eat grass as a corrective against her hunger and thirst. Then she heard the sound of running water. Prisoners had found a way to drain the water from a locomotive along the track. Survivors gathered round to drink.[8]
Theresienstadt, Typhus
It turned out that they had been transferred to the concentration camp at
Paris
At
Albert Kolinka
Ginette Cherkasky married Albert Kolinka in on 13 April 1951. Kolinka had worked in forestry before 1939, after which he had spent five years as a prisoner of war. After they married the two embarked on a shared career as market traders.[21] Their son Richard was born in July 1953. He has become a drummer. Between 1976 and its dissolution in 1986 he acquired fame as a member a member of the rock band Téléphone.[22]
Toxic memories
In 1947 Ginette Cherkasky went dancing. At one stage the sleeve of her blouse fell away, revealing the number "78599" tattooed on her arm. "Afraid of losing your telephone number?" jested her galant dancing partner. She did not dance with that one again. For more than forty years she and her husband ran a hosiery, knitwear and haberdashery stall in the market at Aubervilliers. She was not ready to discuss her experiences of the Holocaust, and would firmly dismiss any attempts by others to ask about them. But after her husband died in 1993, and her son became an adult, that started to change. In the early 2000s she joined an association of surviving war-time deportees and began to speak out, sharing her experiences with a new generation in order to awaken awareness of the murderous consequences of racist ideologies.[18][23]
Recognition (selection)
- 2 April 2010: Ginette Kolinka was appointed to a knighthood in the Legion of Honour.[24]
- 27 January 2016: Ginette Kolinka was appointed a commander of the education-related Education Minister Najat Vallaud-Belkacem.[2]
- 31 December 2018: Ginette Kolinka was promoted within the Legion of Honour, becoming an officer of the order.[25]
- 8 May 2020: Ginette Kolinka appeared on the respected and popular - if sometimes sensationalist - daily radio magazine programne "Hondelatte raconte" at the invitation of Christophe Hondelatte.
Notes
References
- ^ a b c "Ginette Kolinka, née Cherkasky - Drancy, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen, Raguhn, Theresienstadt". Ginette est née le 4 février 1925 à Paris ; elle a vécu sa petite enfance dans le 4ème arrondissement puis à Aubervilliers. Elle est la sixième d’une famille de sept enfants et a eu une enfance très protégée. Sur dénonciation, le 13 mars 1944, la Gestapo et la Milice viennent arrêter les hommes de la famille. Ginette ayant protesté, elle est embarquée aussi. L’association Cercle d’étude de la Déportation et de la Shoah-Amicale d’Auschwitz. 23 June 2012. Retrieved 15 May 2022.
- ^ a b Discours de Najat Vallaud-Belkacem (28 January 2016). "Décoration de Ginette Kolinka, une femme exceptionnelle". Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, ministre de l’Éducation nationale, de l’Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche. Retrieved 15 May 2022.
- ^ Marion Ruggieri (2019). "A Return to Birkenau [by Ginette Kolinka]- *Long-listed for the Prix André Malraux 2019*". book review. The French Publishers’ Agency , New York. Retrieved 15 May 2022.
- ^ a b c d e f g Martin Doerry (26 January 2020). "Was war und was nie wieder geschehen soll". Erinnerungen von Auschwitz-Zeugin .... Sie wog noch 26 Kilo - aber sie hatte Auschwitz überlebt: Die bewegenden Erinnerungen von Ginette Kolinka erscheinen erstmals auf Deutsch. Der Spiegel (online). Retrieved 15 May 2022.
- ^ a b Corinne Soulay (24 June 2020). "Ginette Kolinka, rescapée de Birkenau, passeuse de mémoire : «Il ne faut jamais oublier que c'est la haine qui a engendré cela.» ..... À quoi ressemblait votre vie avant la guerre?". À 95 ans, Ginette Kolinka, rescapée du camp de la mort de Birkenau, arpente inlassablement les écoles et multiplie les témoignages. Avec un espoir : que ceux qui l’écoutent deviennent à leur tour des passeurs de mémoire. The Walt Disney Company Limited, London. Retrieved 16 May 2022.
- ^ a b "Masseube. Une soirée avec Ginette Kolinka". La Dépêche du Midi. 13 May 2015. Retrieved 15 May 2022.
- ^ a b Monique Cézac (26 January 2022). "Collège Jean-Rostand (Montpon-Ménestérol) : rencontre avec une ancienne déportée de Birkenau". Ginette Kolinka rescapée de Birkenau et passeuse de mémoire a rencontré les élèves de 3e du collège Jean-Rostand dans le cadre du projet «Devoir de mémoire». Le Résistant, l’hebdo ... de la région Libournaise, Bordeaux. Retrieved 15 May 2022.
- ^ ISBN 978-3351034634. Retrieved 15 May 2022.
- ^ Serge Klarsfeld: Le Mémorial de la déportation des Juifs de France. Hrsg.: Fils et filles de déportés juifs de France. 2012
- ^ "Une visite qui a marqué les esprits : Ginette Kolinka". Commune de Carpentras, Mairie. 2 May 2022. Retrieved 15 May 2022.
- ^ a b "Ginette Kolinka l'une des dernières survivantes de la Shoah au Lycée René Cassin à Arpajon". Rectorat de l'académie de Versailles. 6 December 2021. Retrieved 16 May 2022.
- ^ a b "Drancy .... Internment and Transit Camp". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington DC. 19 August 2021. Retrieved 16 May 2022.
- ^ a b Célia Héron (1 June 2019). "Ginette Kolinka: «Il ne faut pas retourner à Birkenau au printemps»". Grande Interview .... A 94 ans, Ginette Kolinka est une des dernières rescapées d’Auschwitz-Birkenau à pouvoir transmettre aux jeunes générations ses souvenirs des camps de la mort. Ils font l’objet d’un livre paru le 5 mai dernier: «Retour à Birkenau». Le Temps, Genève. Retrieved 16 May 2022.
- ^ "Convoi 71 de Drancy,Camp,France à Auschwitz Birkenau,Camp d'extermination,Pologne le 13/04/1944". Yad Vashem. Institut international pour la mémoire de la Shoah, Jerusalem. Retrieved 16 May 2022.
- ^ "Disparition d'Odette Spingarn". Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah. 12 March 2020. Retrieved 16 May 2022.
- ^ "Laja (Léa) Feldblum (1918 - 1989)". Biography. American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise (AICE), Chevy Chase MD. Retrieved 16 May 2022.
- ^ ISBN 978-2366581461. Retrieved 17 May 2022.
- ^ a b Laurent Guenneugues (20 December 2017). "Rescapée d'Auschwitz. Grande leçon d'histoire". Le Télégramme, Morlaix. Retrieved 17 May 2022.
- ^ Jacques Pons (23 May 2019). "Ustaritz: l'impressionnant témoignage de Ginette Kolinka au collège saint François Xavier". France Bleu Pays Basque. Retrieved 17 May 2022.
- ^ Dany Rasque (22 October 2019). "Auschwitz survivor tells her story at LGL". RTL Luxembourg. Retrieved 17 May 2022.
- )
- ^ Alexandre Arlot (22 January 2017). "Chelles. La mère de Richard Kolinka a raconté comment elle a survécu aux camps de la mort". Elle a captivé 120 collégiens pendant deux heures en leur racontant l'histoire de son arrestation et de sa déportation. Ginette Kolinka, 92 ans, la mère de Richard Kolinka (Téléphone) est revenue d'Auschwitz. Le Parisien Libéré, Paris. Retrieved 17 May 2022.
- ^ Danielle Delmaire. "Kolinka Ginette (avec Ruggieri Marion), Retour à Birkenau". review. Tsafon. Revue d'études juives du Nord, Lille. Retrieved 17 May 2022.
- ^ "... Au grade de chevalier". Décret du 2 avril 2010 portant promotion et nomination. Secrétaire générale du Gouvernement, [et] directrice de publication.: Journal officiel électronique authentifié n° 0080 du 04/04/2010. Retrieved 17 May 2022.
- ^ "... Au grade d'officier". Décret du 31 décembre 2018 portant promotion et nomination. Secrétaire générale du Gouvernement, [et] directrice de publication.: Journal officiel électronique authentifié n° 0001 du 01/01/2019. Retrieved 17 May 2022.