Speech by the French Ambassador to Israel, Mr Christophe Bigot ...

Speech by the French Ambassador to Israel, Mr Christophe Bigot
Jerusalem, 3rd of September 2012
Ladies and gentlemen,
First and foremost, I would like to thank the members of B'nai B'rith World Center and the
Committee to Recognize the Heroism of Jews who Rescued Fellow Jews During the
Holocaust for their outstanding work. Thanks to them, we are all here together, to remember
the simple heroism of men and women who, in the darkest hours of our History, have put their
lives on the line to save innocents.
We are honouring today Ms. Margot Cohen, who is one of these noble persons. Dear Ms, I sit
before you today with a sense of deep humility. And because this ceremony is also the
occasion of your 90th birthday, allow me to express my best wishes for health and happiness,
to you and the people you care about.
Today, we are celebrating the heroism of a young girl. At the age of 20, you were in Usaac, in
Corrèze, to organize a summer camp for the youth movement Yeshouroun. At the same time,
Jacques Cohen, who would later become your husband, was working with the Osé association
to open a centre in Oullins, in the Rhône, to provide shelter and welcome the children of
refugees.
A specific event changed your fate. On the 26th of August 1942, hundreds of Jews were
interned in the detention camp of Vénissieux. Hunderds of people who were also parents.
Jacques and yourself, listening only to your courage, took care of their children: you turned
the centre into a safe house and provided a safe haven to the children.
A disaster came in November 1942. Jacques was put under house arrest by the Commissariat
for Jewish Questions. You found yourself, at the age of 22, at the helm of the house and its
thirty children. With the help of a few friends, without running water or heating, in the midst
of winter, you stood firm through thick and thin for five months.
The outcome was successful: Jacques was freed and, thanks to the Osé, the children found
foster families. As for you, you relentlessly kept on assisting children.
In July 1943, you were called to serve as a social worker for the resistance network headed by
Georges Garel. With your bicycle, you hit the road throughout the departments of the Rhone
and the Ain to find shelters or foster families for the children of deportees. You would take
night trains to transport children as far as the Savoie. There, you would put them under the
wing of smugglers who would then take them to Switzerland.
In March 1944, you rushed to the city of Izieu to call for the dispersion of the children staying
at the local camp. The Gestapo had just swept up the local offices and arrested the members
of the Jewish association running the camp. Your courage and your presence of mind saved
the lives of these children.
Your generosity, your devotion, you humbleness, honour you greatly.

I also commend the exceptional work of the Osé which celebrates this year its centenary.
Today, let us pay tribute to the heroism of the dozens of men and women - and among them,
so many anonymous! - who, during the war, organized clandestinely the rescue of more than
5000 children and took care of the orphans after the Liberation.
Each step, each breath, each word of these children is a victory over barbarism. This
barbarism was conducted in France, by French citizens.
France is fully responsible for these acts. Pierre Laval, the head of government at that time,
expressly offered the deportation of children under the age of 16. With this monstrosity,
France reached a point of no return. She sent to death her own children.
More than 11 000 Jewish children were deported to Auschwitz. 11 000 children who were not
allowed to live. The philosopher Martin Buber, who you know well since you were his private
secretary, wrote: "childhood bears a sacred impulse of shaping and transforming the world".
Today, we mourn the loss of this world.
Among these blighted fates, how many writers who never wrote
How many inventers who never created
How many men and women who never were parents
To pay tribute to these children whom France should have protected, we can not simply hide
our eyes, just as a child would do when he is afraid. With gravity and serenity, we need to
learn the lessons of history.
Childhood evokes innocence and oblivion.
But we can not be innocents, because no forgiveness is possible. We are also forbidden to
forget because it would be like becoming an accomplice, a second time.
Today, more than ever, we bear the tragic duty of remembrance.
I would like to pay tribute to the historians, institutions, NGOs which, like gold hunters, are
patiently collecting fragments of history, like nuggets. These words of Gold, these testimonies
like yours, dear Ms Cohen, remind us that, behind the coldness of statistics - like this figure of
6 million deaths tirelessly repeated – we find the individual and human dignity.
Dear Ms Cohen, you worked for many years at the national library. You know too well the
importance of archives. They have the heavy burden of keeping for future generations the vast
structure of recollection.
Victor Hugo wrote that "a library is an act of faith, a testimony delivered in the night in
waiting of the dawn". The testimonies of survivors, Justes, resistance fighters, should not tie
us to the chains of remorse. By their exemplary actions, they invite us, on the contrary, to see
the future without hate or any spirit of vengeance.
Faith in the human kind and hope are the lessons of these testimonies. Thanks to those who,
like Margot Cohen, rose up in the night, the honour of France was saved. Thanks to them, 3
quarters of the Jewish community in France was saved.

Memory is also a fight for the truth. Against oblivion and ignorance, teaching the past in
schools and universities is essential. Too many young French are unaware of their own
history. It is only with an educational effort that horrors like the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup can be
meditated so that, never again, history repeats itself.
We also need to continue the struggle against the counterfeiters of history, individuals or
nations, which still commit the abomination of denying the Shoah. We must act resolutely
towards the Iranian regime which seeks not only to have a nuclear weapon, but also denies the
very existence of the right for Israel to exist. In front of these words and actions, France will
not be a passive witness.
Furthermore, we have to remain vigilant in our daily lives. The disease of anti-Semitism is
taking new shapes and the French Republic has to be inflexible towards every single anti-
Semitic act, whatever it may be. To play down these acts, or worse, be indifferent to them, is
an indignity because nothing, not even a word, is trivial. We have to repeat, again and again,
that anti-Semitism is not an opinion, but an abjection.
The Toulouse killing deeply shocked all the French citizens. In 2012, in France, children were
killed. Their only crime was to be born, to be born Jewish. This revolting fact reminds us that
we should never lower our guard. Anti-Semitism is a daily fight which France and the French
will take on.
Among the multiple dimensions of your existence, dear Ms, I would like to address the
educator. Here I make the choice of hope. You know better than anyone that the work of the
pedagogue is essential to the improvement of mankind. And since, as wrote Martin Buber
“every real life is an encounter”, I make the wish that our children have the opportunity to
listen to testimonies like yours, so that they never forget the dignity of the human kind.
Thank you for your attention.