Commemoration event
Commemoration eventNir Kafri, Delegation of the European Union

An European Union delegation in Israel and the ambassadors of the European Union (EU) member states held a joint commemoration event for Holocaust Remembrance Day together with the Convoi 77 project in memory of the victims of the Holocaust who were deported from Drancy to Auschwitz.

The event was held by the European Union Ambassador to Israel, Emmanuel Joffre, at his residence in Herzliya.

The Drancy internment camp was an assembly and detention camp for confining Jews who were later deported to the extermination camps during the German military administration of Occupied France during World War II. It was located in Drancy, a northeastern suburb of Paris, France.

Between June 22, 1942, and July 31, 1944, during its use as an internment camp, 67,400 French, Polish, and German Jews were deported from the camp in 64 rail transports that included 6,000 children. Only 1,542 remained alive at the camp when Allied forces liberated it on August 17, 1944.

The Convoi 77 Project, founded by George Meyer, focuses on education and the memory of those deported from Drancy to Auschwitz on July 31, 1944. 1,309 deportees are commemorated by the various education ministries of EU Member States and other European countries by connecting high school students who live in the towns and villages where the deportees lived to the stories of the victims. Their memory comes to life in a very tangible way through the research work conducted by the students so that the personal lives of the victims will be remembered.

The project also included the Violins of Hope project, founded by the famous violinist Amnon Weinstein, who devoted the last two decades to locating and restoring violins played by Jewish musicians in concentration camps and ghettos during the Holocaust.

The event was addressed by Ambassador Emanuel Joffre, head of the EU Delegation to Israel. "We must not forget that Holocaust remembrance is not an effort in itself, but rather an essential element in the struggle against anti-Semitism," he said.

"The European Union was built in response to the horrors of the Holocaust and World War II, and the memory of the Holocaust and the struggle against anti-Semitism are our duty to the Jewish citizens living in Europe and are essential to the defense of our common European values. The EU will continue to demonstrate determination and increase its efforts to promote education, combat intolerance, and protect Jewish citizens living in EU member states," Joffre said.

George Mayer, who heads the Convoi 77 project, added "What motivates us is that the history of those 1,309 people will never be lost in the vortex of the Holocaust; The desire to commemorate this life, which has been violently cut off, in the form of a history of life, pictures, written traces, or why not plays or works of art. The concern about the urgency of giving evidence at a time when the last witnesses of the period are disappearing, and also, the recognition that this period of history must be taught, not only out of a sense of compassion and duty to remember, but also through an active teaching."