{"id":5857,"date":"2021-10-21T17:56:38","date_gmt":"2021-10-21T15:56:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saint-paul-angouleme.fr\/application\/?p=5820"},"modified":"2021-10-22T10:08:09","modified_gmt":"2021-10-22T08:08:09","slug":"conferences-of-mme-ginette-kolinka","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saint-paul-angouleme.fr\/application\/en\/conferences-of-mme-ginette-kolinka\/","title":{"rendered":"Lectures by Ms Ginette KOLINKA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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At the initiative of Emma DUPAS, a student of Terminale in Saint-Paul and two teachers (Mrs. Vergne and Mr. Silva Alves), Mrs. Ginette Kolinka, a national of the concentration camps, comes to meet the students of Terminale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Presentation by Ms KOLINKA<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Mrs. KOLINKA comes from a non-observant Jewish family. His paternal grandfather is Russian but will join France. From her maiden name Ginette CHERKASKY, she was born in 1925 and grew up in Paris. An attempt to enter the free zone resulted in an arrest and a stay in prison in Angoul\u00eame. In 1942, the family moved to Avignon. Denounced, Ginette is arrested with her father, her brother Gilbert and her nephew Georges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
Gilbert Cherkasky and Georges Marcou<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

They were then imprisoned in Marseille and then in the Drancy camp. On 13 April 1944 they boarded the train that took them to Birkenau (convoy n\u00b071). As soon as they arrived, Ginette says that the Nazis began by sorting prisoners: children under the age of 15 and people who were sick or too old were directly exterminated. Ginette thinks that for her brother and her father it will be better to wait for the shuttle promised by the Nazis than to walk, but it will lead them to death. Even today, Mrs KOLINKA regrets having advised them to take it. And yet she says: "I was the one who sent Dad and Gilbert to death". She couldn't know… <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"https:\/\/www.yadvashem.org\/fr\/shoah\/a-propos\/solution-finale\/camp-dextermination-dauschwitz-birkenau.html\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Humiliation and work<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Ginette recounts the arrival at the camp and the humiliations suffered by the women deported with her. The group is forced to undress entirely: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We didn't know each other. It's very difficult to be naked like this, I tried with one hand to hide my breasts, with the other to hide my sex.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A woman, a "Kappo" grabs her arm and tattoos her number: 78599 and a triangle. Ginette will sign each of her dedications with the same number that she will never have erased. They are taken to the shower where they are all under a head from which flows water that is first hot and then icy. No question of soap or towel to wipe. The clothes are collected at random in suitcases:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They are not the most beautiful of course and they are not our size. For shoes it's the same, a young girl who had to put on 34 ends up with 38.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

She also recounts the conditions of accommodation, the mud, the food: "a piece of black bread with a little margarine for the day". On the work side, Ginette has to break and then carry stones. She meets Simone VEIL who offers her a dress. A friendship is born between the two women. In November 1944 it was transferred to Bergen-Belsen and then, in 1945, to the Theresienstadt<\/a>camp. In May 1945 Nazi Europe collapsed and the deportees were liberated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"https:\/\/www.un.org\/fr\/conferences\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Duty of remembrance<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Ginette returns home alone and exhausted. His mother and sisters welcomed him:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I fell into my mother's arms. I don't think I cried; I couldn't cry anymore.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Her mother says someone told her her her husband and son were going home. Ginette can do no other than announce "coldly" that they will not return because they are dead. It is to her family that Ginette owes it to have held on after the horror of the camps and nazi barbarism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n