The Izieu Children's Home

Izieu-Ain is a remote, isolated village located in the hills above the Rhône River valley in France, east of Lyon. In 1944 it fell within the administrative district of the Lyon Gestapo commanded by SS First Lieutenant Klaus Barbie. The deportation of the residents of a Jewish children's home located in Izieu by the Lyon Gestapo was one of the most notorious incidents that took place in France in 1944.

The Izieu children's home had previously been used as a vacation home for Catholic children, but after 1943 it was secretly funded by OSE (Oeuvre de secours aux enfants) for the housing and support of orphaned and involuntarily abandoned Jewish children. Children had been brought to Izieu for safety during the spring of 1943. During 1944 the Germans and the French Milice attempted to close most Jewish children's homes scattered throughout provincial France, and to deport the remaining Jewish children residing there.

At 8:10 P.M. on 6 April 1944, SS First Lieutenant Klaus Barbie telegraphed his superior in Paris that the children and staff of the Jewish children's home in Izieu had been "cleaned out." A total of forty-four children (forty-one of them ages three to thirteen, and three teenagers) along with seven adult guardians were arrested earlier that day at 9 A.M. during breakfast, when the Gestapo descended on the farmhouse in Izieu. All of the arrested children were Jewish; half of them had been born outside France or had foreign parents, and several were born in Algeria. One non-Jewish child was released. The original telegram recorded the figure of forty-one children, but several children above the age of thirteen were probably included with the adults and thus considered staff.

The children of Izieu and their adult guardians were jailed at Fort Montluc in Lyon during the night of 6 April; and under escort, with the adults and older boys in manacles, the deportees were transferred on 7 April by passenger train to Drancy. From there most were deported one week later, on 13 April, via transport no. 71 to Auschwitz-Birkenau, arriving at the killing center the night of 16 April. Thirty-four children and three adult guardians were killed immediately on arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The children and adults still at Drancy were deported to Auschwitz in transports on 29 April and on 15, 20, and 30 May. All of these Izieu deportees but one were later killed. Two of the boys and the director of the Izieu children's home were executed in the fortress at Tallin, Estonia. The sole survivor of the Izieu said, L. Feldblum, was liberated in Auschwitz in January 1945 and imigrated to Palestine in 1946.

Barbie's telex was originally presented by the French delegation at Nuremberg as proof of German crimes in

France and submitted as exhibit RF 1235 to the International Military Tribunal (the classification "RF" referred to République française). It was also used in the trial of Klaus Barbie in Lyon in 1983-1984. The following facsimile of the telex is copied from the National Archives in Washington, D.C., Record Group 238, RF 1235. The translation, prepared by Sybil Milton, follows the structure of the original document.

Senior Commander of the Security Police and the SS Security Service in the area of the Military Commander in France

Lyon, No. 5269,

6 April 1944, 8:10 P.M.-FI

To the BdS, Department IVB, Paris

Re Jewish children's home in Izieu-Ain; no previous file

This morning the Jewish children's home (colonie enfant) in Izieu-Ain, was cleaned out. A total of 41 children ages 3 through 13 years were arrested. In addition, the entire Jewish staff, 10 strong, including 5 women, were arrested. Neither cash nor other valuables could be secured. Transport to Drancy to follow on 7 April 1944.

Signed: The commanding officer of the Sipo-SD Lyon, Department IVB 61/43, SS First Lieutenant Barbie.

The following handwritten notations by the Gestapo Department of Jewish Affairs in Paris are located below the telegram. Dr. von Behr, who is mentioned in the notes, directed the Einsatzstab Rosenberg in Paris, a special detail that confiscated the property of deported Jews. SS Captain Alois Brunner was in charge of the transit camp at Drancy. SS First Lieutenant Heinz Röthke was the Gestapo expert on Jewish affairs.

1. Matter discussed in the presence of Dr. v[on] B[ehr] and SS Captain) Brunner. Dr. v. B. stated that in such cases special measures for housing children have been arranged by SS First Lieutenant Röthke. SS Captain Brunner replied that he had no knowledge of these instructions or plans and that in principle he would not approve of such special measures. In such cases, he would also proceed with deportation as usual. For the time being, I have made no decision. 2. Copy to SS First Lieutenant Röthke for information and decision.

Last Letter from Izieu

A particularly poignant last letter to God was written by eleven year old Liliane Gerenstein, one of the Izieu children, several days before she was arrested and deported. This letter is reproduced in facsimile in Serge Klarsfeld, Children of Izieu: A Human Tragedy, trans. Kenneth Jacobson (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1985), 56-57.

Maurice Gerenstein

Birth date: January 3, 1931

Birthplace: Paris, France

The parents of Maurice and Liliane, Chapse Alexandre Gerenstein, born August 23, 1901, in Odessa, Russia, and Chendla Entine Gerenstein, born January 10, 1903, in Odessa, were both deported on November 20, 1943, in convoy number sixty-two, to Auschwitz, where Mrs. Gerenstein was murdered. Mr. Gerenstein, a musician, played trumpet in the camp orchestra at Auschwitz; he survived and emigrated to the United States.

Liliane wrote a heart-rending letter, addressed to God, only days before her arrest. The letter was found at Izieu after the raid.

God? How good You are, and how kind, and if we had to count all You have bestowed upon us that is good and kind, our counting would be without end....God? It is You who command. It is You who are justice. It is You who reward the good and punish the evil. God? I can therefore say that I will never forsake You. I will always be mindful of You, even to the last moments of my life. You can be absolutely certain of that. For me, You are something beyond words, so good are You. You may believe me.

God? It is thanks to You that I enjoyed a wonderful life before, that I was spoiled, that I had lovely things, things that others do not have. God? As a result, I ask just one thing of You: BRING BACK MY PARENTS, MY POOR PARENTS, PROTECT THEM (even more than myself) SO THAT I MAY SEE THEM AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. HAVE THEM COME BACK ONE MORE TIME. Oh! I can say that I have had such a good mother, and such a good father! I have such faith in You that I thank You in advance.

Maurice, along with Max Balsam, was brought back to Izieu by Léon Reifman on the morning of the raid; the boarding school that the two boys were attending in nearby Belley had recessed for Easter.

Both Maurice and Liliane were deported in convoy number seventy-one. A cousin living in the United States is associate plaintiff on their behalf.

Liliane Gerenstein's letter to God, praying for the safety of her parents.

Italy

Primo Levi

The internment and transit camp of Fossoli di Carpi was located ten kilometers from the town of Carpi near Modena in Italy. Created in November 1943, it was initially under Italian administration but was taken over in late February 1944 by the Germans. Fossoli existed until July 1944, when the camp was dissolved and transit operations moved to Bolzano-Gries. Arrested for partisan activity, the Italian chemist Primo Levi was held in Fossoli from late 1943 until transport to Auschwitz in late January 1944. Levi's experiences in Fossoli are described in the following excerpt.

Reprinted from Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz, trans. Stuart Woolf (New York and London: Collier Books, 1973), 9–13.

I was captured by the Fascist Militia on December 13, 1943. I was twenty-four, with little wisdom, no experience, and a decided tendency-encouraged by the life of segregation forced on me for the previous four years by the racial laws to live in an unrealistic world of my own, a world inhabited by civilized Cartesian phantoms, by sincere male and bloodless female friendships. I cultivated a moderate and abstract sense of rebellion.

It had been by no means easy to flee into the mountains and to help set up what, both in my opinion and in that of friends little more experienced than myself, should have become a partisan band affiliated with the Resistance movement Justice and Liberty. Contacts, arms, money and the experience needed to acquire them were all missing. We lacked capable men, and instead we were swamped by a deluge of outcasts, in good or bad faith, who came from the plain in search of a non-existent military or political organization, of arms, or merely of protection, a hiding place, a fire, a pair of shoes.

At that time I had not yet been taught the doctrine I was later to learn so hurriedly in the Lager [concentration camp]: that man is bound to pursue his own ends by all possible means, while he who errs but once pays dearly. So that I can only consider the following sequence of events justified. Three Fascist Militia companies, which had set out in the night to surprise a much more powerful and dangerous band than ours, broke into our refuge one spectral snowy dawn and took me down to the valley as a suspect person.

During the interrogations that followed, I preferred to admit my status of "Italian citizen of Jewish race." I felt that otherwise I would be unable to justify my presence in places too secluded even for an evacuee; while I believed (wrongly as was subsequently seen) that the admission of my political activity would have meant torture and certain death. As a

Jew, I was sent to Fossoli, near Modena, where a vast detention camp, originally meant for English and American prisoners-of-war, collected all the numerous categories of people not approved of by the new-born Fascist Republic.

At the moment of my arrival, that is, at the end of January, 1944, there were about one hundred and fifty Italian Jews in the camp, but within a few weeks their number rose to over six hundred. For the most part they consisted of entire families captured by the Fascists or Nazis through their imprudence or following secret accusations. A few had given themselves up spontaneously, reduced to desperation by the vagabond life, or because they lacked the means to survive, or to avoid separation from a captured relation, or even-absurdly-"to be in conformity with the law." There were also about a hundred Jugoslavian military internees and a few other foreigners who were politically suspect.

The arrival of a squad of German SS men should have made even the optimists doubtful; but we still managed to interpret the novelty in various ways without drawing the most obvious conclusions. Thus, despite everything, the announcement of the deportation caught us all unawares.

On February 20, the Germans had inspected the camp with care and had publicly and loudly upbraided the Italian commissar for the defective organization of the kitchen service and for the scarce amount of wood distributed for heating; they even said that an infirmary would soon be opened. But on the morning of the 21st we learned that on the following day the Jews would be leaving. All the Jews, without exception. Even the children, even the old, even the ill. Our destination? Nobody knew. We should be prepared for a fortnight of travel. For every person missing at the roll-call, ten would be shot.

Only a minority of ingenuous and deluded souls continued to hope; we others had often spoken with the Polish and Croat refugees and we knew what departure meant.

For people condemned to death, tradition prescribes an austere ceremony, calculated to emphasize that all passions and anger have died down, and that the act of justice represents only a sad duty towards society which moves even the executioner to pity for the victim. Thus the condemned man is shielded from all external cares, he is granted solitude and, should he want it, spiritual comfort; in short, care is taken that he should feel around him neither hatred nor arbitrariness, only necessity and justice, and by means of punishment, pardon.

But to us this was not granted, for we were many and time was short. And in any case, what had we to repent, for what crime did we need pardon? The Italian commissar accordingly decreed that all services should continue to function until the final notice: the kitchens remained open, the corvées for cleaning worked as usual, and even the teachers of the little school gave lessons until the evening, as on other days. But that evening the children were given no homework.

And night came, and it was such a night that one knew that human eyes would not witness it and survive. Everyone felt this: not one of the guards, neither Italian nor German, had the courage to come and see what men do when they know they have to die.

All took leave from life in the manner which most suited them. Some praying, some deliberately drunk, others lustfully intoxicated for the last time. But the mothers stayed up to prepare the food for the journey with tender care, and washed their children and packed the luggage; and at dawn the barbed wire was full of children's washing hung out in the wind to dry. Nor did they forget the diapers, the toys, the cushions and the hundred other small things which mothers remember and which children always need. Would you not do the same? If you and your child were going to be killed tomorrow, would you not give him to eat today?

In hut 6A old Gattegno lived with his wife and numerous children and grandchildren and his sons and daughtersin-law. All the men were carpenters; they had come from Tripoli after many long journeys, and had always carried with them the tools of their trade, their kitchen utensils, and their accordions and violins to play and dance to after the day's work. They were happy and pious folk. Their women were the first to silently and rapidly finish the preparations for the journey in order to have time for mourning. When all was ready, the food cooked, the bundles tied together, they unloosened their hair, took off their shoes, placed the Yahrzeit candles on the ground and lit them according to the customs of their fathers, and sat on the bare soil in a circle for the lamentations, praying and weeping all the night. We collected in a group in front of their door, and we experienced within ourselves a grief that was new for us, the ancient grief of the people that has no land, the grief without hope of the exodus which is renewed every century.

Dawn came on us like a betrayer; it seemed as though the new sun rose as an ally of our enemies to assist in our destruction. The different emotions that overcame us, of resignation, of futile rebellion, of religious abandon, of fear, of despair, now joined together after a sleepless night in a collective, uncontrolled panic. The time for meditation, the time for decision was over, and all reason dissolved into a tumult, across which flashed the happy memories of our homes, still so near in time and space, as painful as the thrusts of a sword.

Many things were then said and done among us; but of these it is better that there remain no memory.

With the absurd precision to which we later had to accustom ourselves, the Germans held the roll-call. At the end the officer asked "Wieviel Stück?" The corporal saluted smartly and replied that there were six hundred and fifty "pieces" and that all was in order. They then loaded us on to the buses and took us to the station of Carpi. Here the train was waiting for us, with our escort for the journey. Here we

received the first blows: and it was so new and senseless that we felt no pain, neither in body nor in spirit. Only a profound amazement: how can one hit a man without anger?

There were twelve goods wagons for six hundred and fifty men; in mine we were only forty-five, but it was a small wagon. Here then, before our very eyes, under our very feet, was one of those notorious transport trains, those which never return, and of which, shuddering and always a little incredulous, we had so often heard speak. Exactly like this, detail for detail: goods wagons closed from the outside, with men, women and children pressed together without pity, like cheap merchandise, for a journey towards nothingness, a journey down there, towards the bottom. This time it is us who are inside.

The Confiscation of Jewish Property in Florence With the overthrow of Mussolini's regime and the creation of the Italian Social Republic of Salò, German control in northern Italy increased dramatically, and the situation for Jews there became more perilous. In late 1943 and early 1944, independent units of Fascist fanatics spread terror among the Jewish population of northern Italy. In Florence Major Mario Carità's band of two hundred Fascist thugs, subsidized by Minister of Interior Guido Buffarini Guidi, practiced open violence against Jews and anti-Fascists. On 4 January 1944 a decree was promulgated in the Social Republic of Salò that prohibited Jews from owning shares or land and confiscated their wealth, including liquid assets and real estate. The text of an official form used for implementing this law is translated below. The expropriated Jewish property was listed at the end of the form.

The document was published in Gianfranco Moscati, Gli Ebrei alla vigilia del secondo conflitto mondiale: Documentazione delle leggi discriminatorie e provvedimenti antiebraici in vigore negli Stati sotto le dittature naziste e fasciste (Naples: No publisher, 1993), doc. 2098. Translation by Dr. Anthony Di Iorio.

Republican Prefecture of Florence The Province Chief of Florence

Subject to article 259ff of the War Act, implemented by Decree no. 1415 of 8 July 1938 (XVI) and amended by Law no. 1902 of 16 December 1940 (XIX),

Under Decree no. 566 of 10 June 1940 (XVIII) ordering the application of the above law in territories administered by the State,

Given Law No. 1994 of 19 December 1940 (XIX) containing new rules regarding the treatment of enemy properties and economic relations with persons of enemy citizenship as well as the disposition of the property of enemy subjects as regulated by Decree no. 618 of 10 March 1941 (XIX),