The Disappearance of Annette Zelman – Summer 1942

From a young age, Jacques Sierpinski was both intrigued and horrified by the fate of Annette Zelman, one of the daughters of his grandmother's sister paternal. We sometimes talked about it at home, without dwelling on the subject too much. for fear of awakening bad memories. Annette was just 20 years old when her destiny as an artist turned into horror. A liberated young woman, in ahead of its time, unaware of the perils that awaited the Jews in this dark period of history that was the occupation and the Vichy regime, Annette fell in love with a brilliant young Dadaist poet named Jean Jausion. The latter, from a notable family originally from Toulouse, and Annette, originally from Nancy, wanted to get married, despite the opposition of the Jausion family. Faced with the stubbornness of his son, Father Hubert Jausion, A renowned doctor, seeing that nothing could prevent their marriage, decided to alert the German authorities and, at the highest level, Theodor Danneker. The family later learned of this in 1961 through the writings of historian Henri Amouroux. ; Annette was part of convoy No. 3 to Auschwitz. Taking advantage of a business trip to Krakow, Jacques went to Auschwitz and decided to undertake photographic work, to retrace Annette's steps, to collect archives, family photographs, to record the testimonies and memories of his cousin Michèle, last survivor of the siblings, and also to pay tribute to Annette through her poems and drawings.Jacques Sierpinski has been a freelance photographer since 1978. He lives in Toulouse and is conducting personal research on the territory and memory, with work on the Angkor site in Cambodia or on the battle sites Napoleonic.