Survivor sharing his story
Francis Weil recounts his memories during the Holocaust as Yom Hashoah approaches
Holocaust survivor Francis Weil endured a childhood that went down in history as one of the most tragic and unfathomable genocides.
He is coming to Halifax to share his story.
The Atlantic Jewish Council is hosting its annual Holocaust Remembrance Day, also known as Yom Hashoah to the Jewish community, on May 5. It will take place at the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 at 7 p.m.
The program will include a candle-lighting ceremony, and guest speaker Weil.
Weil was born in Azas, France in 1938, the year before the Second World War began.
Azas was owned by Germany when his father, Gilbert Weil, was born in 1899. Gilbert was in the German army and made prisoner by the French in 1918. He later enrolled in the French army and became imprisoned by the Nazis.
A prisoner to both sides.
TOO DANGEROUS TO STAY
“When Hitler came to power, it was a very frightening time for my parents,” said Francis Weil. “We lived just a few kilometers from the border of Germany.”
In 1939, they decided it was too dangerous to stay there.
“My mother was born in Switzerland, where it was safe, so she took me and my brother there with her,” said Weil.
She soon began to miss her husband back in France, who was still in an encampment, and took her boys back. She would later regret this decision because Switzerland had closed its borders and didn’t want any association with the Nazis.
“They didn’t accept anyone coming into the country anymore,” said Weil. “But she thought it was her duty to be with her husband.”
In 1942, things were growing worse. The Nazis invaded the northern part of France, in addition to the south. Weil’s father went to explore the Swiss border, near Geneva, to see if there was a way to sneak in.
“Somebody told him to go to a monastery near the border, where a monk promised to get his family across, and we could then go into hiding.”
They told a few of their family members about this, wanting them to come, too. However, they refused.
SOME FAMILY MEMBERS DIED IN AUSCHWITZ
“They things were bad, but not that bad,” said Weil. “By not coming, they were sent to Auschwitz (concentration camp) a few weeks later, where they were killed.”
Weil, his brother, and parents hopped on a train to Switzerland. A conductor on the train noticed their last name on their tickets, and realized they were Jewish. He brought his father to the captain.
“The captain said, ‘who cares whether he’s Jewish or not.’”
His family was lucky in more instances than one, able to escape when many other families could not.
“We arrived in the countryside and walked through the woods, while it was slowly starting to get dark,” said Weil. “We came to a barbed wire fence and cut it with wire cutters – a hole just small enough for my mother to crawl through. As my father was passing me over the fence to my mother, someone in the distance yelled for us to put our hands up.”
A Swiss soldier caught them; however, he allowed them in the country and walked away.
Lucky, once again. While he was young at the time, he can still recount the memories of what he went through.
“I was four years old, at the age where you start to realize things. But I didn’t realize that we were in a world that was so cruel,” said Weil.
TRAUMA LED TO ANGER
His traumatic experience caused anger within him, as he grew to comprehend what his family had to endure.
“As I aged, (and began) to realize what the Nazis had done, I reached a stage where I was angry at anyone or anything to do with Germany,” said Weil. “But German people began to realize that what they did was wrong, and I knew I couldn’t hold present German people for crimes that happened in the past.”
Weil now lives in Moncton, N.B. He’s devoted to educating others on the Holocaust and has spoken at many events like these to share his unique life story. He goes to one or two schools per year, to educate children on the severity of this historical event.
“We all should be aware of the bad things that happened,” he said.