Simone Lagrange UNESCO 2014

Simone Lagrange (nee Kadousche) was born on October 23, 1930 in Saint-Fons, France, near Lyon. Originally from Morocco, her parents Simon Kadousche and
Rachel came to France in the 1920s.

When the war began in France, Simon participated in the resistance, aiding refugees from the Occupied Zone and participating in the transport of arms. As a young
adolescent, Simone also engaged in her first acts of resistance, disseminating resistance propaganda materials. Betrayed by a person they were sheltering, Simone’s family was arrested on June 6, 1944 and taken to Gestapo headquarters. Over the course of the following days, while Simone and her parents are taken to the Montluc prison, Simone was repeatedly beaten by Klaus Barbie, head of the Gestapo in the Lyon region. At the end of June 1944, Simone and her mother are deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp via Drancy. Simone’s mother perished there in the gas chambers in August 1944. After five months there, Simone was transferred to Auschwitz I, where she worked in a factory until January 18, 1945. During the course of the death march that followed her evacuation from the camp, Simone identified her father, also on a death march, and reunited with him at the behest of an SS soldier, who executed him in front of her eyes within minutes of the reunion. Her death march continued until the Ravensbrück concentration camp. During the camp’s evacuation in May 1945, she escaped the transport with a fellow prisoner. On May 8, the fugitives witnessed the arrival of the Red Army.

After a long and circuitous route, Simone returned to France on May 27, 1945. Klaus Barbie was finally caught in the 1970s, and Simone was a key witness in the 1987 war crimes trial for his role in the Gestapo during the war. She told a story of her Holocaust experiences in the documentary As A Young Girl of 13 (2011) and was featured in the documentaries Hôtel Terminus (1988) and Autopsie d’un mensonge - Le négationnisme (2001). She continues today to transmit her story to students.

The interview was conducted in Seyssinet on October 14, 1995. The interviewer was Gérard Darcueil and the cameraman Denis Cugnod.

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