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| Jacques BENGUIGUI was born on April 13, 1931,
Richard BENGUIGUI on March 31, 1937, and Jean-Claude BENGUIGUI on
December 26, 1938, all in Oran, Algeria. They were three of the 44 children
from Izieu. Their mother, Fortunée Messaouda, née Chouraki, was
born on April 30, 1904, in Oran. Arrested in Marseilles, she was deported on
July 31, 1943, to Auschwitz on convoy 58. She was used as a guinea pig on Block
10 for medical experiments and, while she was there in the camp, learned that
her three boys had been deported and killed. On her liberation, she weighed
only 84 pounds, but her humanity was an inspiring example: she spent some time
taking care of a paralyzed German woman (non-Jewish), the mother of two
children. When she returned to France, she had the after-effects of the
suffering she had endured, but she also had her young child, Yvette, who had
escaped arrest. Born on March 2, 1941, Yvette had had to leave Izieu because
she was too young; she had been entrusted to neighboring farmers.
Fortunée Benguigui's participation in a hunger strike with Beate
Klarsfeld in Munich in 1971 has become legendary. This is what Jacques wrote to
his mother on May 30, 1943, from Izieu: O Maman, my dear Maman, I know how
much you've suffered on my account and on this happy occasion of Mother's Day I
send you from afar my best wishes from the bottom of my little heart. So far
from you, darling Maman, I've done everything I could to make you happy: when
you've sent packages, I've shared them with the children who have no parents.
Maman, my dear Maman, I leave you with hugs and kisses. Your son who adores
you. The three boys were deported on convoy
71 of April 13, 1944, Jacques's 13th birthday. Fortunée Benguigui
died in 1988 on the day that she received the Legion of Honor medal. |
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FRENCH
CHILDREN OF THE HOLOCAUST A memorial
Serge Klarsfeld
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