Le Petite Fille du Passage Ronce by Esther Senot and Isabelle Ernot

 Le Petite Fille du Passage Ronce

by Esther Senot and Isabelle Ernot is the story of a family devastated and lost because of the Holocaust.

The family of Esther was a modest one, and they were new in Paris. They had left for good Polland noticing that the anti-semitism was becoming a horrible problem just ten years before.

Her mother had had seven children in total, both her parents, plus her brothers Marcel and Achille her beloved sister Fanny and Bella, plus uncles, cousins, all dead in Auschwitz or other camps.

It hasn't been a simple reading this one, because there is an intense sufferance, not mediated by time, again, although I recognize in this wonderful and tender lady a big courage, and an immense sweetness seen also in the structure of the book; in the first part there is the introduction at the family Dzik and the personal experience of Esther in Auchwitz and her liberation; the second part is a series of letters written by Esther to his various family members, in particular to Fanny and her parents. Pictures included. Fanny died in Auschwitz after many sufferances; Esther survived and this one was the promise she made her: telling their story, not leaving their time passed in Auschwitz buried in the past or in the time. We all know that for survivors is impossible to forget because it was simply too irrational what they experienced. Imagine a lot of people in train dedicated for animals transportation, kept there per more than 12-13 days, before their final arrival, defecating, making pees wherever they could, without any sort of privacy, or other personal hygiene, treated as animals; just this experience will give to you the idea of what it meant.

Unfortunately the wind of the anti-semitism involved France as well, tells Esther, and most of her family was captured  on 16 april 1942.

Not having anymore anyone, for Esther will start a long crusade. She found several refugess but at the end will be discovered and will finish to Auschwitz. She tells that she was close to the crematorium, that to her seeing many corpses became a daily experience. They thought that she could work and she did it, employed in a place where they produced tubes. She knew Marie, a friend, and then was strong her connection with Fanny, her sister, rediscovered there, but Fanny at some point died.

A couple tried to escape from Auschwitz. In this case discovered, they would have being hanged up but the girl preferred to cut her veins for not give this satisfaction to the SS.

To them this girl was seen as a heroine.

Once the war was over, and they were free, in the while Esther went also in Berger-Belsen, she could just see that everyone of his family was not yet returned and most of them wouldn't never returned home. At first Marie, her friend gave her hospitality but situation became difficult with Marie's boyfriend, who didn't want to see around anyone. Esther then went in a sort of orphanage, but too tired of fighting, she tried to kill herself; this time she spent some time in a psichiatric hospital, where people reassured her: she would have built a great existence, just she had to believe in herself. And the strength of living, more powerful than nothing else returned. With love, as well. Her boyfriend and then her husband knew her story and he thought that it would have been better to close definitely that chapter, for living only happily! the rest of her existence. The family of her husband didn't never ask her of her pasr, for keeping her always cheerful and happy.

Esther has had three children and they rarely talked about what it meant to her the Holocaust and the Shoa.

The public appearances of Esther started when she joined a group for a touristic visit in Germany, Auschwitz included. The touristic guide treated the topic with superficiality, not knowing, when Esther remarked that she had been there. There was a big silence and then the invitation of the guide at explaining what had meant to her. Since there Esther has visited a lot and a lot of schools; the first one, she was at that time maybe more shy than not now, she didn't know what would have happened but the teacher said her that the children were prepared. Later she received from them, she tells in the book a bit envelope plenty of letters.

This book is extremely moving. Told with great sweetness, and the important promise made to her sister Fanny of telling the horror, because, only telling what humans are in grade to do to other humans, we can avoid that the story would repeat itself. We can't permit it.

Highly recommended book.

I thank Editions Grasset for the physical copy of the book.

Anna Maria Polidori