(27 Jan 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Paris, France – 27 January 2025
1. Various of Auschwitz survivor Esther Senot arriving for meeting and being greeted by young ambassadors, people clapping
2. SOUNDBITE (French) Esther Senot, Auschwitz-Birkenau camp survivor:
“The first day, we walked in rows of five, as best we could. Obviously, it was around -20 degrees (Celsius). We had to avoid falling because from that moment on… The snow was still slippery and we were clinging on one after the other. And then unfortunately, those who fell, an SS soldier who was supervising us came into the ranks and killed the people who fell with a bullet in the back of the neck. So obviously, for us, we had the objective of saying to ourselves we have to pick up the people who died and put them on the sidelines, because those who arrived behind also stumbled into them.”
3. Various of Senot at table recounting how she survived the concentration camp with young people listening
4. SOUNDBITE (French) Esther Senot, Auschwitz-Birkenau camp survivor:
“When we ended up in Bergen-Belsen, they put us in cattle trains again. So there, it was catastrophic because, as the Russians were advancing quickly, once they had liberated the (Auschwitz) camp, they were in Germany, so they were advancing quickly. So they were bombing the railway lines on one side. The Allies were bombing the other side. We were locked in a cattle train saying ‘now it’s the end of the war and then we’re going to be bombed by the Allies’. Well finally, so luckily, they pushed us to the side of the road, waiting to repair the rails because the transport of Jews had priority."
5. Various of Senot talking to group, people listening
6. SOUNDBITE (French) Esther Senot, Auschwitz-Birkenau camp survivor:
“Women, a year after the war, who weigh 30, 32, 33 kilos and have shaved hair, it wasn’t… there were more of them. So obviously, we had a small crowd of people who came up to us and said: what happened to you? Tell us about it. We started, with Marie (her friend who was in Auschwitz-Birkenau at the same time as her) to try to explain what happened to us. And then we started to see that people were becoming agitated. They said: ‘you’ve gone crazy, you’re talking nonsense, it didn’t exist. What an idea to spread stories like this!’ And then there is a gentleman who looks at us and says: ‘by the way, you came back in such small numbers, what did you do to come back and not the others?’ So in the end, we were practically made to feel guilty about coming back."
7. Various of Senot arriving and sitting down for ceremony at Shoah Memorial
8. SOUNDBITE (French) Esther Senot, Auschwitz-Birkenau camp survivor:
“We stayed for a few days lamenting. You know, there was no psychological unit when we arrived. We arrived, it had been a year since France had been liberated. We arrived to total indifference. After a year, people were singing, dancing, living, it was… then we arrived with all the misery of the world on our shoulders and it was really quite a period, the return was, well for me, it was quite difficult."
9. Various of ceremony
10. SOUNDBITE (French) Esther Senot, Auschwitz-Birkenau camp survivor:
11. Various of ‘Wall of Names’, names engraved of the 76,000 Jews, including 11,400 children, deported from France between 1942 and 1944
12. SOUNDBITE (French) Esther Senot, Auschwitz-Birkenau camp survivor
"I got married, I had three children. I have six grandchildren. I have six great-grandchildren. You see, I came back as an orphan and I still managed to start a family again."
13. Various exteriors of Shoah Memorial
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