Jewish Holocaust survivor finds hope and the light of Christ

Despite his 96 years of age, Jacques Averbuch, a permanent deacon in Boulogne-Billancourt, France, hasn't lost any of his joy for life. It radiates from him with a disarming simplicity, leaving a mark on everyone who meets him.

Behind his benevolent smile, it's hard to imagine the tragedy this man endured in July 1942. He was a child survivor of the Vélodrome d’Hiver (“Vel' d'Hiv”) roundup, a mass arrest of Jews in Paris. Most of those taken captive, including his parents, died in concentration camps during the Holocaust.

Averbuch could’ve let himself be destroyed by the loss of his parents, but he chose another path: the path of light, the path of Christ. He shares this moving testimony in his book Rescapé du Vél' d'Hiv (“Survivor of Vél’ d’Hiv”), which was released in French on Wednesday, April 15.

Born on January 27, 1930, Jacques led a happy childhood at 13 bis Rue Versigny in the 18th arrondissement of Paris. He lived with his father, Leybiche, and his mother, Golda—both Polish immigrants—along with his half-sister Paulette from his father's previous marriage. “We had no shower, no fridge, no washing machine, and few toys, but we were happy,” he told Aleteia.

While both his parents were Jewish, they barely practiced their religion, though the feast of Passover remained very important. Their happy daily life was first perturbed when war was declared in 1939. Like many Parisians, Jacques fled the capital with his sister and his mother, who was pregnant at the time.

They ended up in Châteaubriant in western France. There, families had volunteered to take in people fleeing the capital. That's how they met the Rouls, a Catholic family with six children—two girls and four boys, three of whom would later become priests. In this loving and protective home, his mother gave birth to his younger brother, Marcel, on April 9, 1940.

Not seeing the danger ahead, the family returned to Paris just after the armistice in the summer of 1940. While the Nazis grew increasingly virulent toward Jews, Jacques's parents stayed calm and followed the rules, wearing the yellow star.

“In 1942, we knew that Jews were being arrested, but my parents weren't particularly distrustful. My father considered himself an honest man. He didn't see what anyone could reproach him for,” Jacques recalled.

Jacques himself felt fear for the first time on July 16. “I was playing in the caretaker’s lodge with her son when I saw two plainclothes policemen go by. They took away a Jewish woman from our building. I remember hiding under the table at that moment, I was so scared.”

The next day, Friday, July 17, at 5 a.m., policemen rang the doorbell of his family's apartment. Jacques Averbuch was only 12, and his brother Marcel was 2. Like thousands of other Jewish families, his was on the list for the Vélodrome d'Hiver roundup.

For some mysterious reason, his sister Paulette, who was 19 at the time, wasn't on the list, but she decided to follow her family anyway. “Dad put a few things in a brown potato sack. And that's how, at five in the morning, we headed toward Rue du Mont-Cenis.”

Their fate was decided that day in front of a German officer. “One of the policemen who accompanied us presented my parents to him and asked what he should do with us, the children. The German replied mechanically, ‘The children must follow the parents.’”

Then the second policeman intervened, pointing out that Paulette was with her family but wasn't on the lists. “The German thought for a moment and decided, ‘In that case, for now, leave the two children with her!’ I owe my life to a German officer,” Jacques explained. He described that moment as providential, as if the breath of God had suddenly enlightened a conscience.

Helplessly, the three children watched their parents leave for Drancy. “I remember they got on an old bus... I never saw them again,” Jacques whispered.

But being spared didn't mean being saved. “The day my parents were arrested, we went home. That evening, my aunt, my father's sister, came with her son to say goodbye to us, because they were told someone would come for them the next day at 11 a.m. They kissed us and they, too, left forever.”

Then began another ordeal: absence, uprooting, and daily fear. Their only wealth consisted of two letters received from their parents from Drancy just days before they were deported to Auschwitz on July 24, 1942—the final traces of a love soon swallowed up. In the midst of this tragedy, a family reached out to them: the Roul family, whom they already knew. “Paulette sent them a telegram, and the reply was as quick as it was brief: ‘Come!’”

Thanks to them, the three orphans found not only refuge and safety but also faith. Jacques gradually experienced a progressive encounter with Christ. “Living among Christians who were witnesses through their actions made me want to become his disciple too.” Converting to Catholicism, like Paulette, he was baptized on December 22, 1942.

At 16, he even thought about becoming a priest. “A health hiccup sent me to the major seminary in Aix-en-Provence for a year. My condition didn't improve, and I understood that my calling was probably elsewhere,” he explained.

This didn't stop this child of the Holocaust from becoming deeply committed to living his faith. After the war, he got involved in the great adventures of social Catholicism, including the Young Christian Workers, scouting, and initiatives linked to community housing. He worked in the advertising department at the Catholic publishing house Bayard, but above all, he dedicated his life to serving others, especially his neighbors at 14 Rue de Sèvres.

Ordained a permanent deacon in the Diocese of Nanterre on December 3, 1994, at the age of 64, he has become a living witness to a tormented century, as well as to a Church in motion.

Paulette eventually took a vow of chastity with the Poor Clare nuns. (The Order of St. Clare, also known as the Poor Clares, was founded in 1212 by Clare of Assisi at the request of Francis of Assisi). She passed away in 2016.

“She was a saint! She was a second mother to me and Marcel. At only 19, she found herself at the head of a family,” Jacques testified. His brother was the only one who married. He had three children and seven grandchildren.

In 2019, the whole extended family traveled to Auschwitz. “It was a very powerful and, at the same time, very painful moment. We found my parents' names. They were arrested on July 17 and left for there on July 24 in freight trains... It must have been atrocious,” Jacques said with emotion.

His grieving didn't happen all at once; it took time to accept his parents' deaths. “I remember that at the end of the war, when we were in Châteaubriant, French prisoners would return every evening. We thought our parents were going to return too, and we went to the train station every day... we waited for them.”

While Jacques Averbuch passionately embraced the Christian faith, his conversion didn't erase his Jewish roots. Like Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, he requested that the Kaddish, an ancient Jewish mourning prayer, be recited on the day of his funeral at the Church of Notre-Dame de Boulogne. “I remain deeply attached to my roots,” he proclaimed.

For decades, he has been speaking in middle schools and high schools. He tells his story to the younger generations, not to revive the pain, but to keep it from being forgotten. His account is touching because it's incarnate: it carries the voice of a child who watched the world collapse, and that of an old man who continues to believe in the light.

How do you live after the unspeakable? How do you still believe in humanity, and even more so in God? To these dizzying questions, Jacques Averbuch replies with a simple but powerful phrase, justified by the heart of our faith, Christ’s redemptive death and resurrection: “Life always wins!”