Les Derniers - Guy

Guy
Granat

Guy Granat

Born in Poland in 1925, Guy was deported to Auschwitz in July 1944, along with his brother Samuel and his father Léon. They were together until Léon was murdered in the Dora camp. Guy and his brother were then transferred to Bergen-Belsen. When they were liberated from the Bergen-Belsen camp, they knew nothing of the fate of their mother and sister. When an uncle told them that they were alive and in Poland, Guy decided to go and look for them. The war was barely over, and the journey was a real ordeal but he managed to find them. They owed their lives to the farmers who had hidden them at the end of the war. They finally reunited with the rest of the family in France. In the small room of the furnished hotel where he lived for a long time, Guy had the recurring nightmare that he was being suffocated by a quilt. He would hardly ever talk about what he had been through. It was not because he was shy, but more because he was concerned, he couldn’t find the right words to express what he had lived through. That’s why he and his brother decided to keep silent about their past experiences. He then put all his energy into burying those painful memories. After he got married, his family and his work became the only things that mattered to him. He was a hard-working professional, spending long hours at work even on weekends, but it made him successful. The couple's four children knew that their mother was a former hidden child and their father was a deportee, but at home they never asked questions because they knew they wouldn’t get answers. One day, however, one of his eight grandchildren asked him about the number tattooed on his arm. He opened up a little but didn’t offer too many details, because according to him "speaking about it doesn't do any good". On the other hand, Guy always used humor in his life. When one day, he was asked where his perfect German came from, he replied that he had learned it at the best university: Auschwitz-Birkenau. [...+]

My visit to Guy

Clips

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Guy

« I kept having the same nightmares »
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Guy

« I didn't want to talk. It was hurting the children and I didn't get anything out of it. »
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Guy

« I was in the best hotel: Birkenau Auschwitz »
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Guy

« What do you make of a situation like that? »

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