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For the last four years, I've worked with Professor Helen Weinstein of History Works TV on preparing 1000s of school students for Holocaust Memorial Day. Each year HMD have a phrase that they give anyone making these preparations. It's a theme we can focus on and create ceremonies around. This year the phrase was 'One Day'. Helen asked me to write a piece that the students could use for a physical theatre piece.
Apart from the Prologue
the narrator who is speaking is
Eugène Handschuh
who is telling a story that I have translated
from his own accounts
and 'heightened' into a dramatic monologue.
The stories he tells actually happened.
What I haven't written into the piece
is that my father's uncle and aunt
were in the Drancy Camp
at the same time as Eugène Handschuh
and were on the same train (Convoy 62)
going to Auschwitz.
Here then,
is a story of resistance and hope
in the midst of the catastrophe
that was the Holocaust.
PROLOGUE
ONE DAY our lives changed.
We didn’t think about yesterday
And tomorrow may not happen.
We had to cope with what was in front of us
on that one day.
Get through one day
and then on to the next.
One day at a time.
One day after another.
[Eugène Hanschuh speaks]:
"We were Hungarian Jews, living in an area
called the Marais in Paris.
We were Communists in the Resistance.
This meant we were in hiding
We were fighting the Nazis
And the Nazis were hunting down Jews.
Jews like us.
We had false papers, which were about to run out;
we had to pick up the new ones
from our old home in the Marais.
But we were spotted,
We were followed
and we got picked off.
It was December 28, 1942,
This One Day changed everything.
We were no longer free to fight the Nazis.
We were arrested by the French
and handed over to the Nazis
We were interrogated.
That meant we were beaten.
We had hardly anything to eat - a little ball of bread a day.
Get through one day
and then on to the next.
One day at a time.
One day after another.
We were in this camp for two months, breaking stones.
I was just skin and bone.
Get through one day
and then on to the next.
One day at a time.
One day after another.
Then we were transferred to the Camp at Drancy.
This was a new housing estate
turned into a prison camp for Jews.
Jews were being deported day by day.
We didn’t know where.
All that we knew was that people didn’t come back.
We called the place they were deporting us to:
‘Pitchipoï.
We said over and over,
‘Nous n’irons pas à Pitchipoï'
It means: We’re not going to Pitchipoï'
We came up with the idea of digging a tunnel-
to escape.
We started on September 15, 1943.
One Day that changed our lives.
Get through one day
and then on to the next.
One day at a time.
One day after another.
There was Maurice, René, Georges, Roger, Abraham,
Claude and myself in the core team.
Starting out in a cellar
Under one of the blocks of flats.
Digging,
lining the tunnel,
packing the earth down in the cellars.
In the end, there were more than 40 of us taking turns.
The tunnel was 1.30m high, 0.8m wide.
Can you imagine that?
We got lights down there
and propped up the tunnel with wood.
It was tough what with the heat and the lack of air...
We had to come up on the ground above
to check we were going in the right direction.
Get through one day
and then on to the next.
One day at a time.
One day after another.
Even my dad was in the team.
Some of us fainted on the job.
It was hard.
By November,
the tunnel was over 35 metres long.
Not far to go - maybe 2 metres or 4.
We reckoned on being able to escape on the 9th or 10th of November.
Get through one day
and then on to the next.
One day at a time.
One day after another.
But then with hardly any more tunnel to dig,
One of our guys heard the Nazis talking about a tunnel.
Those of us down there
had to get out fast.
Get out! Get out!
When we came out of the tunnel
Into the cellar we just dumped our clothes
And ran.
We thought we had got away with it.
But the Nazis found the entrance to the tunnel,
in the cellar.
They found the pile of dirty clothes
and there was a pair of trousers
with wrapping paper in the pocket.
On the paper, a name.
This One Day changed everything.
We could no longer be in prison
to dig our way to freedom.
We knew that they would put us
on one of the trains to Pitchipoï.
They arrested this guy whose name
Was on the wrapping paper
and they started to interrogate him.
To start off with, he said nothing
but then they did their usual:
they said they would punish many innocent people
because of the one guilty man.
That would mean women and children
being locked in cellars with no food.
So this guy gave them thirteen names.
He made sure it was men who had no family
in the camp.
I was one of them.
And my father.
We were taken to a cellar and beaten.
They asked us to face the wall
and they set up a mock execution
We admitted we were the ones who dug the tunnel.
They thanked us
for having talked the about the tunnel.
“You won’t be shot. We’ll deport you.”
We talked about escaping again,
but we couldn’t get out.
We said again, ‘Nous n’irons pas à Pitchipoï.'
Next we were taken to a train at Paris Bobigny station.
This was a train made up of cattle trucks.
1200 Jews were put into these trucks.
There was crying and screaming.
We found out later that this was Convoy 62.
It left Paris Bobigny Station on November 20, 1943.
One Day,
A day that would change everything for nearly everyone
on board that train.
We didn’t know then anything about the Holocaust.
All we knew was that something bad was going on,
something wrong.
We were going on a journey and not coming back
unless we did something about it.
One of the guys in the Resistance
had heard that the train would slow down
in a tunnel at a place called Bar-le-Duc.
We said, ‘Nous n’irons pas à Pitchipoï.’
We hid tools in our clothes.
On the train people were packed
into the trucks
No food
No toilets
Not knowing where they were going.
There was crying and screaming.
And the smell was terrible.
We got to work on the bars in our truck.
But they wouldn’t budge. Luckily,
there were two strong rugby players with us,
Roger and Georges.
They tore the bars off.
And then
On this One Day
When the train slowed down,
My dad jumped.
And then we jumped!
We ran back to find my father but he wasn’t there.
But we knew the rule of the Resistance:
whoever can get away,
mustn’t worry about the others.
So that’s what we did.
This One Day..
We got to Bar le Duc railway station
but there were Nazi guards along the platforms.
But we also saw that there was a mixed bunch
standing about there, forced labourers,
deportees
and we mingled amongst them, unnoticed.
We had a 50 franc note on us,
and bought tickets back to Paris.
What about dad?
When he jumped he hit the roof of the tunnel
And passed out.
When he woke up, he realised he had to run…
He got to a farmhouse
and the couple living there took him in,
bathed his wound and hid him.
When the Nazis came looking for him,
the couple said they knew nothing.
Then in the morning they took him to Paris.
And I met up with him.
Can you imagine that?
I thought I had lost him
I thought that on that one day
he was gone
And I’d never see him again.
And here he was.
We hugged each other like
we had never hugged each other before.
We asked each other
Where was the train going?
We didn’t know.
And then we went back to join the Resistance
To fight the Nazis.
And that’s a true story.
My name is Eugène Handschuh
And my father – may his memory be a blessing -
Was Oscar.
You may ask where did the train go?
What happened to the 1200 people on that train?
There were 19 of us who jumped
on that One Day.
The rest went to Auschwitz.
Only 29 came back.
.
And that’s a true story.
Remember:
Get through one day
and then on to the next.
One day at a time.
One day after another. "
---------
End.
