Hélène Berr (27 March 1921 – 10 April 1945) was a French woman of Jewish ancestry and faith, who documented her life in a diary during the time of Nazi occupation of France. In France she is considered to be a "French

Anne Frank Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank (, ; 12 June 1929 – )Research by The Anne Frank House in 2015 revealed that Frank may have died in February 1945 rather than in March, as Dutch authorities had long assumed"New research sheds new light on Anne Fra ...

Life

Hélène Berr was born in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

, a member of a Jewish family that had lived in France for several generations. She studied Russian and English literature at the Sorbonne university. She also played the

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

She was not able to pass her final exam at the university because the anti-Semitic laws of the Vichy regime prevented her from doing so. She was active in the ''

Union générale des israélites de France The (General Union of French Jews; UGIF) was a body created by the antisemitic French politician Xavier Vallat under the Vichy regime after the Fall of France in World War II. UGIF was created by decree on 29 November 1941 following a Ger ...

'' (UGIF, General Organization of Jews in France). On 8 March 1944 Hélène and her parents were captured and taken to

Drancy internment camp Drancy internment camp was an assembly and detention camp for confining Jews who were later deported to the extermination camps during the German occupation of France during World War II. Originally conceived and built as a modernist urban comm ...

and from there were deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp on 27 March 1944. In early November 1944 Hélène was transferred to the

Bergen-Belsen concentration camp Bergen-Belsen , or Belsen, was a Nazi concentration camp in what is today Lower Saxony in northern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. Originally established as a prisoner of war camp, in 1943, parts of it became a concentr ...

, where she died in April 1945 just five days before the liberation of the camp.

Diary

Hélène Berr began her notes on 7 April 1942 at the age of 21. At first the horrors of anti-Semitism and the war do not show in her diary. The landscape around Paris, her feelings for one young man, Gérard, and her friends at the Sorbonne are the topics of her diary. In addition to her studies, the reading and discussion of literature, and playing and listening to music comprise a significant part of her social and cultural life. She falls in love with Jean Morawiecki, who reciprocates, but ultimately decides he must leave Paris to join the

Free French Free France (french: France Libre) was a political entity that claimed to be the legitimate government of France following the dissolution of the Third Republic. Led by French general , Free France was established as a government-in-exil ...

in late November 1942. In her text, which has many literary citations including

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

John Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculo ...

and

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequel ...

, the war initially appears at most as an evil dream. But little by little she becomes more conscious of her situation. She reports about the

yellow badge Yellow badges (or yellow patches), also referred to as Jewish badges (german: Judenstern, lit=Jew's star), are badges that Jews were ordered to wear at various times during the Middle Ages by some caliphates, at various times during the Mediev ...

that Jews were ordered to wear and notes the expulsions from public parks, the curfews and arrests, as well as the abuse against her family members and friends. Etoile-Jaune-IMG 0942

The actions directed against the Jews become harsher and more painful to all of them, but the

Final Solution The Final Solution (german: die Endlösung, ) or the Final Solution to the Jewish Question (german: Endlösung der Judenfrage, ) was a Nazi plan for the genocide of individuals they defined as Jews during World War II. The "Final Solution t ...

itself is never made explicit to the public. Because of this, Berr, who does much volunteer work with orphans, initially finds it impossible to comprehend why women and especially children are included in the deportations to the camps. She hears rumours about the gas chambers and complains about her fear of the future: "We live from hour to hour, not even from day to day." A deported Jew tells her about the plans of the Nazis. The last entry in the diary is about a conversation with a former

prisoner of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of ...

from Germany. The diary ends on 15 February 1944 with a citation from Shakespeare's 'Macbeth': "Horror! Horror! Horror!" The Diary, written in French, contains some English. It was translated by David Bellos and the entire diary has been translated besides 2 sentences. The first sentence appears on page 48 (of the English copy). "Refait l'Ancien dans la matinée." The meaning of this sentence has not been established. The second sentence that has not been translated was on page 261. "Nous serons de la même fournée." Madame Loewe says this sentence to reassure Hélène. In common tongue, this phrase means, "We'll be in the same boat." Madame Loewe is trying to reassure Hélène that she is not alone and that if they are taken they will be taken together. It was meant to reassure her. However, the literal translation of that sentence is, "We will be in the same oven." To quote David Bellos (the translator), "I cannot reproduce in English the hideous lurch into prophecy made by this phrase in French, and so I have left it alone."

Publication

Berr ordered her notes to be released to her fiancé Jean Morawiecki after her death. Morawiecki later followed a career as a diplomat. In November 1992, Hélène Berr's niece, Mariette Job, decided to track down Morawiecki with a view to publishing the diary. He gave the diary that consists of 262 single pages to Job in April 1994. The diary has been stored at Paris' Mémorial de la Shoah (Holocaust Memorial Museum) since 2002. The book was published in France in January 2008. The ''

Libération ''Libération'' (), popularly known as ''Libé'' (), is a daily newspaper in France, founded in Paris by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in 1973 in the wake of the protest movements of May 1968. Initially positioned on the far-left of France ...

'' paper declared it as "the editorial event at the beginning of 2008" and reminded the readers of the lively discussions about the book of Jewish

Irène Némirovsky Irène Némirovsky (; 11 February 1903 – 17 August 1942) was a novelist of Russian Jewish origin who was born in Kyiv, the Russian Empire. She lived more than half her life in France, and wrote in French, but was denied French citizenship. Arre ...

. The first print of 24,000 copies was sold out after only two days.

Exhibition

Opening of the exhibit "Hélène Berr, A Stolen Life - Exhibition from Mémorial de la Shoah, Paris France", was held at the Alliance Française d'Atlanta in Atlanta, Georgia USA, on Wednesday, 22 January 2014, at 7:00 PM. Speakers included the Consul Generals of France and Germany, Directors of the Alliance Française and the Goethe-Zentrum as well as the Executive Directors of the Memorial de la Shoah, Paris and the Georgia Commission on the Holocaust.

Selected works

*Hélène Berr: ''Hélène Berr Journal, 1942–1944'', Foreword by

Patrick Modiano Jean Patrick Modiano (; born 30 July 1945), generally known as Patrick Modiano, is a French novelist and recipient of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is a noted writer of autofiction, the blend of autobiography and historical fiction. In ...

, January 2008, Éditions Tallandier,
''Préface du «Journal» d'Hélène Berr''
Foreword (French) *Hélène Berr: ''The Journal of Hélène Berr'', Translated by David Bellos with notes by the translator and an afterword by Mariette Job, 2008, McClelland & Stewart, Toronto, *Hélène Berr: ''Oorlogsdagboek 1942-1944'', Translated by Marianne Kaas with a foreword by

, 2009, De Geus, Breda, (Dutch)

References

External links

* Lise Jaillant, "A Masterpiece Ripped From Oblivion: Rediscovered Manuscripts and the Memory of the Holocaust in Contemporary France.

Clio 39.3 (Summer 2010): 359–79.
''France finds its own Anne Frank as young Jewish woman's war diary hits the shelves''
''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper Sunday editions, published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group, Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. ...

'', 6. January 2008 (English)
''Helene Berr's Holocaust Diary Flies Off the Shelves''
'' Der Spiegel'', 9 January 2008 (English) {{DEFAULTSORT:Berr, Helene 1921 births 1945 deaths French Jews who died in the Holocaust University of Paris alumni Writers from Paris Women diarists French people who died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp Auschwitz concentration camp prisoners French women memoirists 20th-century French women writers 20th-century French writers Jewish women writers Holocaust diarists French memoirists 20th-century memoirists