Testimony
From Buchenwald to France
Izio Rosenman was nine years old when he arrived at Buchenwald in January 1945, deported from Częstochowa with Samson Rosenman, the father. In the “Little Camp”, the clandestine resistance moved him into Block 66, the children’s block, where the chances of survival were better.
The camp was liberated on 11 April 1945. Samson died of tuberculosis on 22 May, after liberation; he was buried in a common grave at Buchenwald, marked by a plaque.
In June 1945, Izio was among the 426 “children of Buchenwald” taken in by France through the OSE — funded by the American “Joint”. For these orphaned children, its educators were “substitute mothers”. In its homes, at Écouis, Ambloy, Taverny and then Versailles, he knew a certain Elie Wiesel — an encounter that would become a lifelong friendship — and the poet Carmi Charny (T. Carmi) taught him Hebrew.
He often cites Pastor Martin Niemöller’s warning against complicit silence: “First they came…”.
2006 — Grand Entretien
INA · Mémoires de la Shoah — 45 chapters
A first major filmed testimony, in 45 chapters — from childhood in Dęblin to rehabilitation by the OSE. Full transcript.
Mémorial de la Shoah — In conversation with Régine Waintrater
“Cycle Témoignage”
A “Cycle Témoignage” conversation at the Mémorial de la Shoah, with the psychoanalyst Régine Waintrater.
2024 — “Le projet”
a film by Margaux Chouraqui · Les Temps Qui Courent
Over 2023–2024, a ninth-grade class at Collège Flaubert (Paris 13th) talks with Izio Rosenman — the first time he testifies before students — and follows him to Buchenwald. The film brings the memory of the Shoah into conversation with that of the Algerian War, through the teacher Kamel Chabane. Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah · Les Temps Qui Courent · AlloCiné.
The children of Buchenwald
Lectures
- “Reconstruire la vie après la catastrophe et l’épreuve” — ECUJE
- “Sionismes pluriels” — Livres des mondes juifs (2009)
- “Les précurseurs” — Les Juifs et la modernité (2010)
- “Récits des origines” — Livres des mondes juifs (2012)
- “Désacraliser le judaïsme” — with Isabelle Pleskoff (2014)
- “La Shoah m’a fait perdre la foi” (2017)
- “Sortir d’Égypte, sortir de quoi ?” (2017)
except where noted, on Akadem