We no longer present “Les Rencontres du Papotin”, launched by filmmakers Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache. Since 2022, they have periodically invited personalities to answer funny, sometimes abrupt, always clever questions from these journalists who have the particularity of being non-professional and suffering from autism spectrum disorders. With success, the formula was established, the slogan established: “Anything can happen”.
Tonight, everything is the same. But everything will be different, thanks to a 99-year-old woman, Ginette Kolinka, liberated by the Russians from the Birkenau concentration camp, at the age of 19, in 1944. She kept silent for five decades, including with his son, Richard Kolinka, the drummer of the rock band Telephone. Before becoming a “memory passer”. Since then, she has written, given conferences, visited schools and television sets.
Short gray hair, black pants, earrings and pearl necklace, Ginette Kolinka takes her seat. The custom is for her to introduce herself. “I am a young girl of 99 years old, I had a happy youth (…) and a happy old age. Between the two, there was deportation, which I would not wish on anyone. » Never, however, does the show fall into compassion or sadness. Quite the contrary: smiling, gentle, the old lady has an infectious strength and joie de vivre.
Light and historical sequences
The editor-in-chief, Julien Bancilhon, organizes the journalists’ speaking engagements. Jean gets up to ask him how his father and brother died. “Murdered by the Nazis; at 12,” says Ms. Kolinka for her brother. “I’m sorry,” Jean adds sincerely. Did she suffer? “You will never realize what I went through,” she said to Matthias soberly. But when Thomas shifts into Ah! the little white wine, the song by Tino Rossi, she is not the last to sing.
Unlike what usually happens, when Claire’s turn comes, she retracts, destabilized by emotion. Before pulling himself together: “How does it feel to have lived a century? » “It’s not a stupid question,” encourages Ginette Kolinka. I didn’t think about it. » Light sequences and historical sequences alternate.
When Stanislas grabs the microphone and declaims a poem in his powerful voice, Ginette Kolinka immediately identifies If It’s a Man, by Primo Levi. Did she forgive? “I will never forgive the Nazis. » Is she proud of her son? “To me, he was the most beautiful baby in the world. » Today, the baby – 70 years old – had a surprise in store for him.
She smiles, her eyes half-closed, as she does every time she thinks about the deportation. She survived. Many were not so lucky. Also, nothing can destabilize her anymore. No difference ; not even an invitation to dance to the music of She Dreamed of Another World.
“I’ll come back,” she said. Life is beautiful.
