La lettre de mon père
une famille de Tunis dans l'enfer nazi
Description:... Traces the life and especially the last few months of Gasquet's father, Gilbert Scemla; his uncle, Jean Scemla; and his grandfather, Joseph Scemla. All three were executed by the Germans in Halle in 1944. Gilbert was born in Tunisia in 1941. He fought in the French army in 1940, but was expelled because of the Vichy laws and returned to his wife in Tunis. Their son Frédéric was born in 1941. In 1942 the Germans occupied Tunisia; in 1943 Gilbert and his brother Jean tried to join the Free French forces in Algeria, aided by their father, Joseph. They were denounced, arrested, and sent to Germany. They spent one year in Dachau, and later were condemned to death by a military court and decapitated. In a farewell letter to his wife, published on pp. 56-59, Gilbert asks her to remarry for their son's sake; in 1948 she married Louis Gasquet. Argues that Gilbert, Jean, and Joseph Scemla were killed because they were Jewish, not because they tried to rise up against the Germans. Joseph Scemla was executed only for having accompanied his sons to the border.
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