During the annual Crif dinner on Monday in Paris, Elisabeth Borne recounted her painful family history in order to show the importance of fighting against anti-Semitism. The Prime Minister thus returned to the deportation of her father to Auschwitz.
“There are dates that mark a destiny. For my father, but in reality for my whole family, it’s December 25, 1943,” said Elisabeth Borne, whose father, of Jewish faith, was deported to Auschwitz. A survivor, he ended his life in 1972, when his daughter was 11 years old.
A difficult return to life
“That day, together with my grandfather and my uncles, he was arrested by the Gestapo. Then came the sealed wagons, the orders, the beatings, the humiliations. Drancy, Auschwitz. They were 1,250 at the start. Six have returned,” said the Prime Minister, who was the guest of honor at this traditional meeting of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France. Among the survivors, “some managed to keep the taste of hope and faith in life. Others don’t. I know that only too well,” she continued.
The head of government also said that “in the months following his return from the camps, (his) father had started to speak, until he was told that it was better to be silent”. “Some wanted to put a blanket of silence on the past,” she explained, confident that what had “happened there”, her father had “written it in two letters”.
In front of nearly a thousand guests (politicians, ambassadors, religious, trade unionists, artists, etc.) gathered at the Carrousel du Louvre, Elisabeth Borne called for “combat, with all our strength, anti-Semitism, wherever it shows up, wherever he strikes, wherever he hides”. She also recalled her wish “that each student in France” make “at least one visit to a place of memory during their schooling”, one of the measures of the plan to fight against racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination. originally linked for the years 2023-2026, presented three weeks ago.
Measures to help victims file a complaint
She also indicated that “during the year 2022, the number of anti-Semitic acts fell by more than a quarter compared to 2021”. An allusion to the count published recently by the Crif. “This is progress,” she said, while calling for “continue to act”. Concretely, she recalled the measures helping victims to file a complaint. And pleaded for the establishment of a “single device, capable of ensuring both the withdrawal of illegal (hateful online) content and then their judicial treatment”.
For his part, the president of Crif, Yonathan Arfi recalled the role of education in the fight “against hatred”. “Anti-Semitism is also taking on new faces,” he said, citing in particular “Islamism”, “conspiratorial discourse”, “hatred of Israel”.