Their names are Elie, Ginette, Miriam, Francine, or even Shelomo. They all recounted their deportation, their roundup or their hidden childhood to documentary filmmaker Sophie Nahum as part of her project The last, launched in 2017. In total, the director collected the testimonies of nearly 100 people, “the last deportees”, and has already broadcast around thirty on the website Lesderniers.org. In January 2023, his project takes a new turn. Sophie Nahum creates a TikTok account, on which she publishes short extracts from these precious exchanges. Thirty seconds, one minute. Today, on an application popular with young people and best known for its dance or humor videos, this account has almost 29,000 subscribers and certain excerpts have been seen millions of times. While the survivors of the Shoah are dying one after the other and the number of anti-Semitic acts in France remains very high, can social networks be used to preserve this memory?
L’Express: Why did you decide to create a TikTok account?
Sophie Nahum: The goal of Last has always been about reaching young people, without snobbery. Many are not aware of the subject and think that it does not concern them, that it is in the past. TikTok is a gateway for them to hear about the Shoah and then watch our full episodes on the site, go further with their teachers, read books… I was already publishing excerpts from episodes on Facebook and Instagram, but the public remained a bubble made up of friends, friends of friends or people already interested in the subject. On TikTok, young people come across it by chance. But I didn’t expect such success. The account took off very quickly with an extract where Ginette Kolinka, with her famous cheekiness, makes fun of Julia Wallach’s deportee tattoo. It was a very short extract, but unique! We had 2 million views in a few hours.
Have you considered creating specific content for TikTok?
It’s not about overinvesting in TikTok or making it a TikTok project. There are already some on this theme, notably the account of Lily Ebert, an Auschwitz survivor. My job has always been documentaries, I’m not a TikTok user! The strength of the project is the quality of the production: we don’t film on the phone and when I meet the survivors, I spend half a day with them to make a ten-minute episode. At the beginning, we asked ourselves the question of whether, while filming, we would not make a short video for TikTok. But it’s not worth the episodes, which are real little documentaries. They can be distributed on many different media and they last over time.
How do you choose the clips broadcast on TikTok?
From the start of the project, before TikTok, the idea was to create a kaleidoscope. When I film someone, I tackle all themes, from childhood to the present. Then, during editing, we angle according to the strong point of the story. As the episodes are ten minutes long, many young people tell me that they watch one, two, then several, which they would not do with an hour-long film. That’s not enough, of course, but, on TikTok, in 50 times thirty seconds, we learn things, we hear words we hadn’t heard, we ask ourselves questions, like what Vel is. ‘d’Hiv’. These are hooks! For a long time, survivors went to testify in classes. Today, that time is over. Nothing will ever replace them, but we have to find another way to interest the youngest.
How do young people who watch the videos react?
In a very simple and sensitive way: they say it’s horrible, wonder how it could have gotten this far… However, I don’t play the emotion or pathos card. Besides, that’s not why the witnesses are talking. They want to transmit combat, cries of warning, not that we cry with them. Many young people are also receptive when it is older people who teach them a little lesson, share values and saving messages. They say it gives them courage and strength. I wanted to present young people with heroes worthy of them.
Have you received any negative reactions?
Most of them are positive, but I also hear “again? We have to stop with that”, or memory competition: “The Jews again?” As if it was an old story. But the Shoah is a paradigm, it is the worst thing humanity is capable of doing, the industrialization of death. As Elie Buzyn said, it is the biggest European project: at Auschwitz, the deportees came from all over Europe. As such, this concerns everyone. We must keep in mind what Man can move towards. People have thrown babies into fires. Young people need to be aware of this! Recently on TikTok I saw a comment from someone whose profile picture was an SS logo. But I don’t work according to the deniers, otherwise it’s me who is limited. I’m stuck, that’s all.
Have you had any messages from teachers?
Yes, some thank me, because it is the slightly different tool they needed to arouse the interest of the students. I was a little worried about what very “serious” people, historians, professors, would think of it… But they always react well, they explain to me that we lacked a project like this! As the witnesses disappear, we see the importance of a project that appears lighter, more human, but which says the essential.
Which story surprised you the most?
I learn lots of things every time. I am not a historian and, although I am touched as a Jew and a human being, this is not my personal story. The interest of this project was to go a bit like a child, in a naive way, so that the survivors would tell me their story simply. I’m always surprised, because I never get used to it, I always have the same disbelief. When a witness tells me that his little brother died in a gas chamber, I always feel the same shock. After filming former deportees, I began to interview former hidden children. I was surprised, because it was almost more upsetting. They grew up without parents, without understanding why their mother had not returned, there was no body, no death certificate. Growing up with this emptiness and building your life… These testimonies arouse immense respect in me.
Do you have any other ideas to develop The last ?
I have written three books and I will surely do more. A feature-length documentary is also in preparation. We are working on a bilingual video platform, on which all our content will be available and classified by subject. It will be more convenient for students and teachers. The other project is a geolocalized application offering testimonials depending on where you are. The idea came from a trip to Auschwitz. There, if you have a bad guide, it’s a disaster! There is a lot of revisionism in Poland. The responsibility of the Poles in the Shoah is often erased, as if there were only victims or righteous people. Since a law passed in 2018, historians face prison time if they speak about it. With this application, if you find yourself in the barracks or in the latrines, testimonies will tell you what it was like. Same thing for the Vel’ d’Hiv’ or the Drancy camp. This will make these places come alive. For a long time, trips were made with survivors. Ginette Kolinka says that, when she is in Auschwitz, she knows how to bring to life what is around her, she knows what to say to young people so that they feel something. Auschwitz without the voices of witnesses is much less powerful.
Ginette Kolinka has often recounted her deportation, particularly in schools. But, in your interview with her, she says she doesn’t believe in the benefits of her testimony and we learn nothing from History. What do you think ?
I’m not very optimistic and I don’t have the ambition to change the world. I wanted to honor these people who were little listened to, little considered after the war. When survivors die, families call me and ask me to pay their respects or thank me for the few minutes of eternity they were given, which touches me a lot. But the “never again”, I don’t believe it for a second. Just look at the information. If Man did not change after the Shoah, there is little chance that he will ever change. The witnesses I interview are worried, devastated by the things they hear. Their collective testament is sad. They did their best, with elegance and courage, without ever being vindictive. Despite everything, we must give a message of hope and resilience. If, thanks to these stories, a few young people decide to move forward, then we will have accomplished something.