A Boy with a Piercing Gaze: What Was His Fate during the Holocaust?
The boy’s name was Victor Eskenazi. But that was all we knew about him when we chose his photo for ads around Washington, DC, encouraging the public to visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Victor’s sweet face contrasts with the hatred represented by the Star of David he was forced to wear. His piercing gaze challenges people to learn why his story — along with millions of others — is still important today.
We were determined to learn more about Victor, his family, and his fate. It took four months and assistance from partners abroad, but eventually we learned his story:
His parents, Raphael and Marie Eskenazi, had immigrated to France from Turkey and married in Paris in 1920. Their children were born in 1923 (Esther), 1928 (Corine), and 1931 (Victor). When Germany invaded France in May 1940, life quickly went downhill for Jews. The Nazi occupiers and collaborationist Vichy regime implemented anti-Jewish policies. Jewish children were even forbidden from entering public playgrounds.
In August 1941, Germans established a transit camp in Drancy, a Paris suburb, for foreign Jews in France. That month, Raphael was taken in a raid that continued for days and resulted in the arrest of more than 4,000 Jews. While he was interned in France, Raphael was able to write to Marie:
- In March 1942, he writes, “Send me the photo of dear Victor quickly. . . . Given the circumstances, they may clear all of us out of here soon.” Upon receiving the photos in June 1942, Raphael responds: “I see that he is turning into a handsome boy. I hope that he is kind and well-behaved the way he is in the photo and that all of you, my children, I hope that you obey your mother and that you give her lots of help because she must have a lot to do and she wears herself out for us all.”
- In June 1942, he writes “I am quite pleased to learn that Corine and Victor are attending Talmud Torah classes. This is very good, my dear little ones, keep at it and study hard and show progress in your studies.”
- In August 1942, he counsels his family to always wear their stars: “In this card, I am going to give you important instructions in regards to the official ordinances. Pay careful attention, none of you should enter cafés, go to the movies, or be seen in any public place; the children, and dear Esther in particular, must never neglect wearing the insignia because that can lead to trouble.”
Żydowski Instytut Historyczny imienia Emanuela Ringelbluma
In Raphael’s absence, Victor’s mother and two older sisters found work. The family procured false identity papers; 18-year-old Esther went to live with a non-Jewish friend; and Marie and Corine worked for a family, cleaning, cooking, and caring for the children.
Raphael wrote in July 1942: “My dear Marie, I am advising you in no uncertain terms that if someone comes and proposes that you send little Victor to the country, I do not want him to go and I do not want you to go far from home. Pay heed to this advice. And I believe that you agree with me and that you will never send him away.”
Marie went against her husband’s wishes, according to an unpublished manuscript written by Victor’s sister, Kaurine Lakajzen (previously spelled Corine), in the collection of France’s Mémorial de la Shoah. Sometime in 1942, when Victor was 11, he went to live at a Catholic boarding school in Sarthe, an area of France southwest of Paris, adopting a new surname, Duchemin, to conceal his identity. A Catholic priest in Paris, Theomir Devaux, who worked with Jewish rescue organizations to save hundreds of Jewish children, helped facilitate Victor’s placement. Marie told Raphael that he was sent to the country because he was ill.
In some of Raphael’s letters, he asks Marie why Victor has not yet returned and displays increasing anxiety about his son. In early August 1942, Raphael writes: “I beg of you, dear Marie, please take care of the children and give them as much to eat as possible — above all, fat, because I am very worried about them and I know that little Victor especially is always pale.”
Victor never saw his father again. Raphael was deported in September 1942 to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he was killed shortly after arrival.
The Allies liberated Paris in August 1944. After he returned home, Victor did not re-enter school. He became an apprentice in a leather goods workshop. He was the breadwinner of the family and took his role seriously.
Later in life, he worked for the French agency that handled unemployment compensation, specifically helping performing artists and technicians who work intermittently.
Victor and his sisters did not practice Judaism as adults, though both sisters married Jewish men. Victor was interested in Buddhism, astronomy, and jazz.
In 1961 in Paris, Victor married Edith, a secretary he met through their common interest in jazz. Their daughter, Mathilde, was born in January 1973, was christened, and attended catechism classes in the Paris suburbs where they had moved. From Mathilde, now 47 and living in France, we learned that Victor died in July 2016 at the age of 84. Her father would have been pleased, Mathilde said, to know that his photograph was used to encourage people to learn more about the Holocaust.
Discovering Victor’s story would not have been possible without: Jude Richter, research and reference specialist, who confirmed that Victor did not appear on lists of those deported or killed and that Raphael was on a deportation list; Diane Afoumado, director of the Holocaust Survivors and Victims Resource Center, who reached out to colleagues in France and provided invaluable translation assistance; Ron Coleman, director of archives, who discovered Raphael’s letters online in the collection of the Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme in Paris; Lior Lalieu-Smadja at France’s Mémorial de la Shoah, who called Joëlle Lakajzen, a woman we found in the white pages with the same last name as the donor of Victor’s photograph and who turned out to be his nephew’s wife; Peggy Frankston, the Museum’s representative for France; and finally Joëlle and Mathilde, who have graciously shared details of Victor’s story.
Victor was among only 6 to 11 percent of Europe’s prewar Jewish population of children who survived. Nazi Germany and its collaborators killed about 1.5 million Jewish children. Read about “Children during the Holocaust” in the Museum’s online Holocaust Encyclopedia.
