Les Derniers - Flora

Flora
Eskenazi

Flora Eskenazi

Flora was born in Marseille in 1925 to a Greek father and a Turkish mother, both traveling ice-cream vendors. She grew up in a happy family of six children. In 1939, the family left Marseille for the small town of Barjols, where Flora lived until her father's arrest. He was undeniably turned in as the authorities didn’t know her family was Jewish. By choice, her father had not reported his family to the census authorities and they did not wear the yellow star. Shortly afterwards, the Gestapo returned and arrested Flora's mother and her 15-year-old brother Henri. Flora and her other siblings, also present at the house at the time, managed to hide and were not found. Unfortunately, Flora was later arrested and deported to Auschwitz on convoy 70. She then ended up in Bergen-Belsen, where she remembers feeling very close to death just before the liberation of the camp. Her father, her mother, her brother Henri - in all, twenty members of her family - did not come back. Eight months after the end of the war, Flora returned to Marseille, where no one was waiting for her. Attractive and charming, she chose to stay single despite her many suitors. She did eventually meet true love, but unfortunately, he was married. Nevertheless, at 41, she became pregnant. They had a daughter, whom he recognized. When I met Flora, she was funny and irresistible, although she admits that for the past ten years, she has been thinking more often about that dark period of her youth. Talking about it causes her blood pressure to rise sharply. But it’s important for her to talk, and she can’t bear when people tell her it's "ancient history". She also can’t help replying sharply to those who claim that "enough is enough" that for her "it will never be enough" because her life without her mother and her family has been forever altered. [...+]

My visit to Flora

Clips

See

Flora

« That cold, I don't think I ever stopped shaking. »
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Flora

« Before I go, I want to testify one last time so that young people know what happened. »
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Flora

« I know what it's like to see yourself die. »
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Flora

« We were the walking dead. »
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Flora

« We were naked bodies, with nothing. »

Livres

Sophie Nahum
Les derniers
Rencontre avec les survivants des camps de concentration

There are not many left who can bear witness to the concentration camps. Barely a hundred men and women, who were silent for a long time in the face of a post-war France that was reluctant to listen to them. Survivors thanks above all to a succession of chance events, they were able to rebuild their lives with remarkable courage. Sophie Nahum went to meet the “Last Ones”, these extraordinary resilient people, including Ginette Kolinka and Élie Buzyn, for a series of short documentaries, from which results this choral book. Their testimonies echo each other, while revealing the singularity of each destiny. In this way, the last survivors of the Shoah – 75 years after the liberation of Auschwitz – offer us a poignant look at their experiences.

“Touching. These men and women speak from the heart”. Paris Match

“My heart beat for [this] book.” Leila Kaddour.

Sophie Nahum has been making documentaries for over 20 years. After working for the major channels, most notably Arte, she decided to produce her films independently. Young et moi (2015, awarded at FIGRA) was the first, followed by the multi-media project “Les Derniers”, to which she has devoted herself entirely for the past four years.

Photos

Other witnesses