By: David Barrios / Senior Staff Writer
The police raids began at 4 a.m. on July 16, 1942. Joseph Weissmann was eleven years old at the time. As a French Jew living in Paris, occupied by the Germans and run by the Vichy government during this period, his life was about to intersect with Nazi Germany’s “Final Solution.”
Over 13,000 Jews would be rounded up from Paris and its neighboring towns by the French authorities within the course of that day and sent to concentration camps in an event now referred to by the French as “The Round-Up.”
Weissman, now 80, spoke to an audience of hundreds of students on January 25, recounting his experiences while interred by the Nazis and his subsequent escape during the Second World War.
“I am not a professional conference man. I am only a witness,” Weissmann told the audience as he began.
Ordered onto buses by the French Police, Weissmann, along with his family and thousands of others, were held at the Velodrome d’Hiver. A former bicycling track and stadium, it would be used to house the Jews until they could be sent to their respective camps.
“There is an incessant moaning coming from people, day and night. The sanitary conditions grew worse day in and day out. Someone commits suicide, creating a great panic among the people there. There was no food and nothing given to drink,” said Weissmann, describing his condition at the Velodrome during his three days there.
Weissmann and his fellow prisoners were rounded onto packed trains and transported to an interment camp outside of Paris.
“On these trains were written, ‘Horses: 8. People: 40. We were about 200 people in this wagon. One restroom per wagon,” he said.
The stay at the internment camp would be temporary, lasting several weeks. The final destination for all of the prisoners was Auschwitz.
Weissmann describe the scene as the Nazi’s searched for valuables held onto the internees before being sent to the death camps.
“Watches and jewelry are taken and earrings are torn out if they aren’t loosened fast enough… along with parts of the ear. Those who are caught hiding something on them are beaten,” he said.
Weissmann would be separated from his family and their fate after Nazi officers felt that the train cart carrying the children was too full.
Over 100 children were to be held at the internment camp, waiting for a later deportation date, promised that they would meet their parents again.
“These children, among them my sisters that screamed in distress, their sadness and pain so high that I cannot find the words to describe them. The mothers and grandparents screaming, because some go and some stay,” Weissmann said, describing the moment he departed the train.
Weissmann, along with his friend Jo, would escape the camp three days after that. He lived from orphanage to orphanage until the United States ended the Nazi occupation in August of 1944.
He also described with some humor his duty along with another young man to clean the “bucket” underneath the wooden planks used as a communal toilet. Weissmann, much smaller than his counterpart, was soon covered in feces.
He discovered in it currency, thrown out by prisoners intent on not giving it to the camp commanders. He would use this money to survive after his escape.
Weissmann currently lives in Les Mans. The film, “The Round-Up,” based on his experiences, stars Melanie Laurent and Jean Reno and is currently being screened at international film festivals.
“A great country like France must remember. I witnessed this tragedy. I must testify,” Weissmann said.
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