Les Derniers - Robert

Robert
Wajcman

Robert Wajcman

Robert was born in France on 8 May 1930 to a father who was an antique dealer at a flea market. In 1944, he was shot, and he and his mother were taken to Drancy, then deported to Auschwitz on the penultimate convoy. He was 14, but pretended to be 16, which enabled him to avoid being sent directly to the gas chamber, like around half of his convoy, i.e. around 500 people. Separated from his mother, he knew nothing of his fate. In the winter of 1945, he made the "death marches" to Buchenwald. On his 15th birthday, he learned that he had been liberated and began to cry his eyes out, having held them back for months. He weighed only 16 kilos and remained prostrate, unable to move. Repatriated to Paris by plane, he was hospitalised at the Hôpital Bichat in a very worrying condition. His mother, who also survived, visited him every day, but he didn't even have the strength to talk to her. After several months, she was finally able to take him home. Robert regained his human form and began studying art, but soon stopped to help his mother at the flea market, where she had taken over her husband's stall. They were badly received by some antique dealers, who regretted the flourishing business they had done during the war and resented having to return to their rightful owners the shops they had appropriated while in hiding or in the camps. For a long time, Robert kept silent. He decided to testify when he heard the first Holocaust deniers claim that the gas chambers were designed to kill lice. Testifying remains an ordeal for him, but his concern for the future drives him to do so. [...+]

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Robert

« When I came back I weighed 35 pounds. »

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