Bidspirit auction | Notre Parole - “Our Word”

Notre Parole - “Our Word” issue of May 1, 1945, marking the destruction of European Jewry and the victory in the war - Notre Parole – Revue Sioniste-Socialiste - “Our Word”, a Zionist-socialist periodical edited by members of Zionist-socialist movements in post-liberation France. An important issue dated May 1, 1945 - International Workers’ Day - Paris. About a week before the final surrender of Nazi Germany, and a few days before “Victory Day.” Title of the issue: May 1, 1945. At the center of the front page, an impressive illustration of a powerful figure symbolizing triumphant socialism, set against a Star of David and the rising sun, with the Jewish victims of the war at its feet. The editorial opens the commemoration of May 1 with the cry of the voices of those who perished in the war, and the victory: “May 1 rises over a devastated world. The shadow of death still wanders over the ruins and in the heart. The air is poisoned... the hatred, sown by the masses of barbarians, bears fruit and turns against its instigators. Tens of thousands of dead, massacred and tortured, cry out for vengeance. Wounded and betrayed human dignity demands reparation and calls for purification. On this May Day, the flags will be redder than ever. They will be red with the anger of the survivors, they will be red with the innocent blood of the martyrs... There will be lily of the valley on this May Day, but there will be the smell of suffocating gases and smoke from crematorium furnaces. Above all, we will hear the cries of terror from Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Majdanek. And yet... beyond the grave, there is the sun; after the night, a sunlit morning; after the nightmare, calm, for life is stronger than death. Love is stronger than hate...”. On the inner pages of the issue, under the heading ...!J’accuse (“I accuse”), there appears, in the first person, the tragic story of two young men who managed to escape from Auschwitz - the brothers Albert and Bernard Fougiel, aged 21 and 22 - who lost about 25 kg of their body weight after arriving at the camp in 1942. They endured hard forced labor and witnessed the execution of thousands of their comrades. The two managed to escape shortly before the end of the war under cover of Russian bombardments that created chaos in the camp, and reached Marseille on their own on April 9, 1945. Their story is presented here in full detail over an entire page, alongside a photograph of the removal of victims’ bodies at Bergen-Belsen. In another article under the heading “Miracles”, moving stories are presented of Jews who managed to survive the war and had just emerged from their hiding places, according to a telegram supplied by Meir Levin of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Included here, among other things, is the remarkable survival story of the survivor Israel Schlapstein, who bribed a Nazi officer with his leather coat, thereby saving his life and that of his infant son, after he managed to keep his toddler alive for a year and a half in a labor camp. During the Russian advance, he was transferred to Buchenwald while hiding his son inside a sack, until the two were ultimately saved through the cooperation of other prisoners. Several other moving stories are also presented of Jews surviving against all odds. On the center page, a major feature titled: “Long live the working class in Eretz Israel” reviews at length the condition of Hebrew socialism in the Land of Israel. On the back page, an extensive article discusses the contribution of socialist Jewry around the world, particularly to children who were torn from their parents, who were sent to extermination camps and remained orphaned in the occupied countries of Europe, and more. The issue also addresses the victory over Nazi fascism after years of relentless struggle, a first attempt to create an international coalition in the spirit of socialism, the mission of the Jewish worker at the end of the war, writings by Berl Katznelson, and more. As well as a socio-political call for the rebuilding of a Jewish and social world after the destruction. 8 pages. 51 cm. Brittle paper. Tears at the edges of the pages. Good-moderate condition.