Paris France
Photo: Reuters
Anne Frank
The French Anne Frank
Harrowing diary published by Jewish university student who perished in Bergen-Belsen arrives in French bookstores, set to be best-seller
The French press has already deemed it the ‘literary sensation of 2008’, but all lofty press superlatives aside, the Helene Berr Journal is undoubtedly a harrowing, captivating read.
This Journal is the diary of Helene Berr, a Jewish student in the Sorbonne who, like Anne Frank, perished in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. She left behind this harrowing account of her life between April 1942 and March 1944, now published 60 years later.
This text was diligently guarded by Helene’s brother, Jacques, and was intended for her fiancée, Jean Morawiecki who fought alongside the Free French Forces in Africa. As the years wore on, Jean became a renowned French diplomat, and received the journal written by “the grey- eyed Helene from the Latin quarter."
Jean ultimately returned the diary to Helene’s family, who saved it for years before donating it to the French Holocaust museum in 2002.
This compelling text, written in rich, eloquent French captivated many over the years, but it is only now that French publishers Tallandier decided to bring it to light.
Helene’s story began in occupied Paris, which was initially replete with romantic walks along the Latin Quarter, tales of first love, conversations in the Sorbonne gardens, and quiet afternoons spent lazing at the Luxembourg gardens.
A picturesque life cut short
By June 1942, however, the first fissures begin to appear in Helene's formerly picturesque life. She was forced to sew a yellow star onto her clothing, and was relegated to the rear car in a train she caught at the École Militaire Metro Station, a car reserved for those wearing the yellow star alone.
As June drew to a close, Helene’s father, Raymond, was arrested, questioned by the Gestapo and ultimately shipped to the Drancy transit camp. Her father’s detainment crushed Helene, who was inspired to join a French-Jewish organization that acted as a liaison between detainees and their families.
As time wore on, Helene’s hitherto neat and orderly handwriting turned into a worn, addled scrawl, and her musings became increasingly more frustrated and jaded with “things that cannot be told” and “peoples’ lack of understanding and sympathy”.
Helene was deported from Paris in 1944, and was shipped to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where she died in April, 1944, two weeks alone before Allied liberation.
Ironically, Helene died in the very camp her celebrated predecessor, Anne Frank, had perished a month earlier.
