For decades, Ginette Kolinka carried a shield made of words. When strangers asked about the Nazi death camp she survived, she offered them a sentence sharp enough to cut off the conversation: “If I had a child, well, I would prefer to strangle them with my own hands than make them go through what I went through.” It was a defense mechanism forged in the smoke of Auschwitz-Birkenau, designed to protect the silence she kept for fifty years.
Today, at 101 years aged, that silence has been replaced by a different kind of armor. Kolinka has turn into one of France’s most vocal witnesses against antisemitism, traveling to schools and speaking to cameras with a generosity that contradicts the horrors she endured. Her shift from guarded survivor to public educator marks a critical juncture in Holocaust remembrance, occurring just as the generation capable of giving first-hand testimony disappears.
The transformation began not with a personal breakthrough, but with a film. Kolinka credits Steven Spielberg’s 1993 release of “Schindler’s List” as the catalyst that eventually led her to open the vault of her memories. Following the film, Spielberg’s foundation reached out to collect testimonies. Kolinka initially refused, telling them it would be a waste of time. It wasn’t until 1997, when an interviewer sat down with her, that the memories flowed for three uninterrupted hours.
That interview became part of a larger archive now holding more than 60,000 testimonies. For Kolinka, the process was less about public speaking and more about confronting the survivor’s guilt that had tormented her since 1945. She speaks of the goodbye kisses she never got to give her father, Léon, and her 12-year-old brother, Gilbert, before Nazi guards sent them to the gas chambers. In her 2019 memoir, “Return to Birkenau,” she wrote that for the first time, she felt compelled to suppose about it again.
The Weight of French Complicity
Kolinka’s public emergence coincided with a slow reckoning within France itself. During World War II, Nazi-occupied France deported 76,000 Jewish men, women, and children, mostly to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Only 2,500 survived. Yet, it took the French leadership half a century to officially acknowledge the state’s involvement in these deportations. In 1995, then-President Jacques Chirac described French complicity as an indelible stain on the nation, a acknowledgment that came too late for most of Kolinka’s contemporaries.
Now, the Paris-based Union of Auschwitz Deportees estimates that fewer than 30 French survivors of Auschwitz-Birkenau remain alive. Kolinka stands as the most prominent among them, carrying a burden that is increasingly historical rather than personal. When she visits schools, such as the Marcelin Berthelot high school east of Paris, she is not just recounting history; she is handing over the responsibility of memory to teenagers who were not yet born when the war ended.
Becoming a Robot to Survive
During her recent school visits, Kolinka spares the students some of the graphic details, yet the abbreviated version remains difficult to hear. She describes being crammed into windowless animal-transport wagons in Paris and the violence that greeted them three days later at Auschwitz. The first German word she learned was “Schnell!”—”Move it!”—screamed by guards alongside barking dogs.
She tells the students about the forced stripping, a humiliation designed to break the spirit of a demure 19-year-old. She rolls up her left sleeve to show them the identification number 78599 tattooed on her forearm. “Some people’s numbers cover their entire arm,” she tells them. “But I have a nice little number.” It’s a moment of dark humor that underscores the dehumanization she endured.
To survive, Kolinka says she shut down her emotions. “I became a robot,” she told the pupils. She watched subsequent trains being unloaded, knowing those aboard would soon be dead, and focused entirely on staying alive. That emotional shutdown was necessary then, but its reversal—choosing to feel and speak again—is what defines her current mission.
The Rock-Star Witness
After her talks, students often gather around Kolinka, reluctant to let the encounter end. They describe her as “extraordinary” and “amazing,” drawn to her mental fortitude. For 17-year-old Nour Benguella, the experience was clear: “Keeping this history alive is the only thing that will permit us to not make the same mistakes.”
This reception highlights a growing urgency. As the number of living witnesses dwindles to a few dozen, the transmission of memory shifts from personal testimony to historical education. Kolinka’s willingness to endure the pain of recollection ensures that the lessons of the Holocaust are not reduced to abstract statistics. She forces her audience to confront the human stakes of murderous hatred, making it impossible for them to claim they did not realize.
Why did Kolinka decide to speak after decades of silence?
Kolinka credits the cultural impact of Steven Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List” and the subsequent outreach from his foundation as the turning point. While initially reticent, she agreed to an interview in 1997 which led to her depositing her testimony in an archive that now holds over 60,000 accounts.
How many French Auschwitz survivors remain today?
According to the Paris-based Union of Auschwitz Deportees, there are fewer than 30 French survivors of Auschwitz-Birkenau still alive. Kolinka is considered the most prominent remaining voice from that group.
When did France officially acknowledge its role in the Holocaust?
It took 50 years for France’s leadership to officially acknowledge state involvement. In 1995, President Jacques Chirac described French complicity in the deportations as an indelible stain on the nation.
What happens to Holocaust memory as survivors pass away?
As the survivor generation disappears, the responsibility for remembrance shifts to educational institutions and archival testimonies. Kolinka’s school visits represent an effort to bridge this gap by providing direct human connection before the window closes completely.
As we listen to Kolinka, we must ask ourselves what we are willing to do with the history she has entrusted to us.
