Michel

Michel Waksberg

Born in April 1941, Michel was just one month old when his father was arrested during the Billet vert roundup and transferred to the Pithiviers camp. Along with his eight-year-old sister, he was placed with the groundkeepers of a large property in the Somme (northern France), while their mother hid in a maid's room in Paris, where the children joined her at the end of the war. Michel never found out what had happened to his father, nor could he question his mother, who suffered from psychiatric disorders linked to the trauma of war. He later married a woman whose father had also been deported. He has two children with whom he is keen to address the issues he was unable to discuss with his own parents.