Madam Prime Minister,
Ladies and Gentlemen Ministers
Ladies and Gentlemen, Secretaries of State,
Madam Vice-President of the National Assembly,
Mr. Questeur of the Senate,
Madam Mayor of Paris,
Mr. Representative of the Regional Council of Ile de France,
Madam and Gentlemen Ambassadors,
Ladies and Gentlemen, elected officials,
Mr. Chief Rabbi of France,
Presidents of institutions of memory,
Ladies and Gentlemen Presidents,
Dear friends,

I was 12 years old. I opened the magazine L’Equipe and I discovered a huge, familiar photo, the photo of the swimmer Alfred Nakache. I then read the detailed article telling the destiny of this Olympic swimmer, star of French swimming in the 30s. On July 7, 1941, he beat the world record, while France was occupied. Vichy France celebrated the athlete and his performance. However, on January 20, 1944, he was deported to Auschwitz by convoy 66, with his wife Paule and his daughter, Annie, aged 2. He returned from Auschwitz alone. Wiped out.

Tears of rage assailed me. Alfred Nakache was my grandmother’s brother.

To face this tragic part of our history, the one that brings us together this morning, to face what the Vel d’Hiv, Vichy, and the Shoah were in fact, is, first of all, to accept to confront the inner torments that these words awaken in each one of us: for me, as perhaps for many of us, it is a dizzying sensation woven into an irrepressible inner rage.

This dull anger in the face of the unthinkable is not a dead end. It pushes us collectively to demand the truth of history.

To seek the truth about the Vel d’Hiv roundup is to identify the deep political mechanisms that allowed the emergence of Nazi ideology in Germany. It is to hear the responsibility of France in the deportation of the Jews. It is also to measure the haste with which the crime was perpetrated.

Between October 3, 1940, the date of the first status of the Jews, and May 14, 1941, the day of the “greenback” roundup, only seven months passed. Then, barely 10 months later, on March 27, 1942, the first convoy left France. Less than 4 months later, on July 16 and 17, 1942, 13,152 people were arrested in just 48 hours. On August 26, 1942, a large round-up in the free zone led to the arrest of 6,584 people. Between July and August 1942, more than 4,000 children were deported and murdered alone in Auschwitz.

Thousands of lives and destinies were shattered. We have just heard the poignant testimony of Arlette Testyler. Mrs. Testyler, I salute your courage. Thank you also to you and to all those who have agreed to testify to all French people by appearing in the exhibition of 42 portraits of Holocaust survivors that Crif has just inaugurated with the Senate on the gates of the Luxembourg Gardens. We will always be at your side.

In France, 42,000 Jews were deported in 1942 alone. If the murder of Jews could be carried out at such a rate, it is because antisemitism had taken root and flourished in our country for many years, gradually breaking down moral barriers and civic principles.

As we know, the actions of the French state did not arouse great waves of protest.
But to make history is also to know how to distinguish that in France, some people resisted Vichy, the Nazis, and antisemitism. There were leaks from police officers, commissioners who favored restraint, Frenchmen who hid for a few nights, and sometimes for long months, Jews who were no longer fugitives. They shone a torch of humanity on the darkness that invaded our country.

This is how Jean-François and Henriette Labro, whose courageous actions Philippe Labro has just described, became involved.

These acts of justice also took place within the Church. I want to pay tribute to the pastoral letter of Monsignor Saliège, who in August 1942 publicly denounced the antisemitic persecutions.

2022 is also the 80th anniversary of this France. It is this France of the Righteous, of their actions, and of those that the Jews of France carried out for their own rescue, which allowed 75% of them to escape deportation and death. To this France, we owe the truth of history and the recognition of consciences.

Ladies and Gentlemen

To face the history of the Shoah is to accept responsibility in the present. This responsibility does not diminish with the years: on the contrary. It increases as time goes by and as Holocaust survivors leave us. 

This morning I can still hear the clear voice of Raphaël Esrail, who used to speak here every year. I can see the face of Elie Buzyn, who left us on the evening of a final testimony. He was the companion of so many trips to Auschwitz, of so many student and youth organizations, to transmit, always and again. Our responsibility must be equal to their commitment.

I feel this responsibility with every reading, with every testimony. This was the case a few days ago, at the Shoah Memorial, in front of Cabu’s drawings of the Vel d’Hiv Roundup. One of these drawings struck me as particularly striking, the one showing a child playing in the center of the Velodrome and being chased by a gendarme. It illustrates how the machine of propaganda and persecution betrayed the natural bond of trust between generations: an adult representative of the law chases a child to send him to his death.

The fate of Cabu, from his drawings of the Vel d’Hiv, to his murder by Islamic terrorists, embodies the tenuous and complex link that always connects the dramas of the present to the tragedies of the past.

Allow me also to share with you a memory that illustrates what vigilance in the face of today’s antisemitism owes to the Memory of the Shoah. On April 10, 2005, a delegation from France inaugurated the stele on the site of Bunker 1 in Birkenau. Among us was Cardinal Lustiger, whose mother was murdered in that first gas chamber. No one will forget his grave face and the long minutes of his contemplation. A few hours later, in the night in Krakow, I had the privilege of accompanying him to the airport. He remained silent. Then he turned to me: “Is it true? Is antisemitism really coming back? How do Jews experience it?” he asked me.

For him, as for all of us, the Memory of the Shoah questioned antisemitism in the present.
It is this promise that we renew together each year by meeting here. I am taking the measure of this commitment for the Crif, of which I will become president in a few days, succeeding my friend Francis Kalifat, who has led the fight against antisemitism with courage and integrity and who has entrusted me with the responsibility of representing the Crif on this platform.

Yes, antisemitism is still very present in France today. Sometimes Islamist, sometimes conspiracy, sometimes anti-Zionist, sometimes denialist, sometimes extreme right, sometimes extreme left…, antisemitism has many faces and many false appearances. In an attempt to deceive our vigilance, it is constantly dressed in the clothes of our time.

In the light of current events, it is nestling in the yellow waistcoat demonstrations. It infiltrates anti-vax movements. It benefits from guilty complacency in the ranks of the Corbyn-leaning far left, which chooses clientelism. It is being trivialized, whatever they say, by the significant entry of far-right MPs into the National Assembly. It is illustrated by obsessive and hateful calls to delegitimize Israel. It is invited in the preaching of certain radical imams, such as the one in a Toulouse mosque…

The memory of the Shoah obliges us to be vigilant in the face of recuperation and instrumentalization. Some people have tried to rehabilitate Pétain in order to make their electoral nest without success. Others imagine that they will quickly forget the origins of the RN and its nauseating connections. Finally, for some, paying tribute to the victims of the Shoah also has a virtue: to counterbalance an assumed hostility to the Jewish state and Zionism. No one is fooled by these crude maneuvers. We recommend that they start by denouncing the antisemitism coming from their own camp.

Just a few weeks ago, at the northern entrance to the city of Avignon, a huge fresco depicting Jacques Attali holding the President of the Republic by puppeteer strings was displayed for passers-by to see.

Sadly, I think that everyone here sensed that such a thing could happen. We are, after all, used to it. The dubious justifications claiming that it was only an artistic work are also, sadly, something we are used to. On the other hand, the fact that a large number of French people, in good faith, do not perceive the antisemitic character of this fresco, shows us the extent of the road we still have to travel together.

The observation is stinging. 80 years after the Vel d’hiv roundup, too many of our fellow citizens are unaware of what antisemitism is. And as a witness to the complexity of our times, some are even, from the height of their conspiracy theorists’ certainties, self-confessed antisemites. Where have we collectively failed?

Some point to the difficulties of the educational system in dealing with the issue of antisemitism. Too complex. Too singular. Out of fashion, for the supporters of memory competition. In the face of this, let us remember one reality: teachers are not the problem. They are the solution. They must be supported.

Madam Prime Minister, I know how important education is to you. We share with you the idea that the Republican promise is based on the ambition of a school that emancipates and develops critical thinking.

Fighting antisemitism requires the mobilization of all public authorities: the police, of course, in the front line against the security threat, but also the magistrates who hold the keys to restoring the dissuasive force of the rule of law in the face of acts against Jews. The antisemitic character must never be overlooked. The fight against antisemitism and against all forces of hatred must be everyone’s business.

Alfred Nakache returned from deportation in April 1945. Little by little, the man who was nicknamed the “Auschwitz swimmer” resumed swimming. He became a world record holder again in 1946 and was the only survivor of the camps to take part in the 1948 London Olympics. This lesson of resistance and determination is the source of my commitment.

This spirit of resistance also animated the founders of the Crif, in the underground, in the heart of the Nazi night, as well as all the French people who opposed the disastrous and criminal plans imagined for the Jews. It is this strength of determination that still carries the French Jews today in their constant commitment to a better society, a society where fraternity is more than a hope: it is a future.

Thank you

Yonathan Arfi, President of Crif

( European Jewish Congress)-

July 18, 2022