An exceptional documentary will be broadcast Monday, September 19 on France 3. Entitled save the children , it tells the story of the only rescue of Jews leaving by train for Auschwitz from France. It was September 11, 1942, exactly 80 years ago. This story has been forgotten but is nonetheless heartbreaking. 39 people including 26 children were saved that day in a station in Lille, thanks to the spontaneous courage of railway workers, residents, nannies, nurses, cafe owners
Survivors testify
The vocation of the documentary is to tell us this incredible story. It is thanks to the work of the historian Grégory Célerse that this unknown episode of our History could be told. In 2013, he worked from a report by a railway worker, found by chance in the boxes of a second-hand dealer in Lille. This report precisely described the rescue.
He then pieced together the whole story and tracked down some of those rescued children, who are still alive today. Some even testify in the documentary. This is the case of Oscar, saved by the railway worker who wrote the report, Marcel Hoffmann. In the documentary, the director shows her the photo of her savior. “He’s a very, very nice man, an extraordinary man. It takes me by the throat to think about it,” he confides with emotion. “A man like that must absolutely be honored”.
A “heroic” story of citizens who take risks
In the image of this reaction, the documentary is very poignant by its testimonies. The memory of the survivors seems intact, even 80 years later. The story is detailed and very well illustrated by a model that reconstructs the sequence of events. And, the more we understand the bravery shown by these railway workers and residents, the more we wonder how this story could have remained unknown for so long.
It was when discovering the book by historian Grégory Célerse that director Catherine Braunstein wanted to make a documentary of it to allow more French people to know this story. “In the past, I have told different stories of Nazi deportation and crimes several times,” she explains on Europe 1. “This is the first time that I have had the chance and the honor to tell the heroic story of citizens who are going to take terrible risks to save a friend, a neighbour, a stranger. And that is so incredible that I immediately had it in my heart to try to documentary, to tell this story”.
save the children by Catherine Bernstein and Grégory Célerse is broadcast this evening on France 3, at 10:50 p.m.