Ginette Kolinka
is a transmitter of memory.
At 99 years old, she travels to schools in France to share her story.
That of a 19-year-old girl who experienced the death camps.
Invited on the France 2 show “Les Rencontres du Papotin”, this Saturday March 9, she testifies to journalists.
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Alert and full of humor, she introduces herself to them at the start of the interview as a “99-year-old girl” before describing her life journey.
“
I was raised in a wonderful family, a happy youth, a happy old age but a period that I wouldn't wish anyone to live through but I was lucky to survive it and come back from it.
Apart from this deportation (…), I was really lucky all the time ,
”
she explains.
Also read: Ginette Kolinka, the “survivor”
Luck, Ginette Kolinka, survivor of Auschwitz, mentions it several times during the interview.
Throughout the episode, she answers various questions from members of the Papotin editorial team, made up of non-professional journalists with autistic disorders.
Even the most direct ones.
“
Is it true that you lost your father and your brother
?
»
,
“
What suffering did you endure in a concentration camp
?
»
, “
Did you try to escape
?
"
,
"
Why weren't you killed in the concentration camps
?
»
…
The death of her loved ones, the terrible living conditions in the concentration camp, her return but also the birth of her son Richard, drummer of the group Telephone... Ginette Kolinka confides with an open heart and delivers an essential and moving testimony.
“
We who are survivors have no right to complain.
We are very lucky to live now ,
”
she says in particular.
The show offers a real moment of history punctuated by lovely moments of complicity like when she sings Lina Margy's song
Ah, le petit vin blanc
.
At the end of the interview, her son also gave her a nice surprise by coming to accompany the musician journalists from Papotin on the drums in a lovely cover of the hit
Un autre monde
by the group Téléphone, leaving Ginette Kolinka moved to tears.