Psychanalyse et idéologie

Psi . le temps du non

In Memoriam Jacqueline Lévy-Geneste

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Il est plus facile d'élever un temple que d'y faire descendre l'objet du culte

Samuel Beckett • « L'Innommable »

Cité en exergue au « Jargon der Eigentlichkeit » par T. W. Adorno • 1964

It is easier to raise a temple than to bring down there the worship object
Samuel Beckett • “The Unspeakable one”
Underlined in « Jargon of the Authenticity » by T. W. Adorno • 1964

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Personne n'a le droit de rester silencieux s'il sait que quelque chose de mal se fait quelque part. Ni le sexe ou l'âge, ni la religion ou le parti politique ne peuvent être une excuse.
Nobody has the right to remain quiet if he knows that something of evil is made somewhere. Neither the sex or the age, nor the religion or the political party can be an excuse.

Bertha Pappenheim

point

© M. W. / 1er Juillet 2009

In Memoriam Jacqueline Lévy-Geneste

Traduit par Carole Lehmacher 

Jacqueline Lévy-Geneste left us on Saturday, June 13th 2009 at 8 pm, soothe, in the Jeanne Garnier's Medical House,

http://www.jeanne-garnier.org

20 days before her birthday, on July the 3rd.

She has rejoined her husband in Dordogne, Pierre Geneste, author of a magnificent book on,

THE ARAGONESE CAPTAIN-POET JERÓNIMO DE URRUEA : HIS LIFE ANS HIS WORK

or

Chivalry and Renaissance in spain of the XVIth Century

At first trainee, under supervision of Serge Leibovici, then with Françoise Dolto, Jacqueline was named psychoanalyst with tenure at the Société Psychanalytique de Paris [SPP / Institut / http://www.spp.asso.fr] as of the end of the 50s.

At this time, she transferred the office she provided at the OSE (Œuvre de Secours aux Enfants), to dedicate herself to her profession as a psychoanalyst within the SPP, with her private practice, and at the Center of Information and Orientation of the Juvenile Court, Arbre-Sec Street in Paris.

Here is the beautiful tribute to Jacqueline Lévy-Geneste’s path - preceding these 50’s - given by Katy Hazan, historian and author of,

The rescue  of the jewish children thanks to the houses of the OSE 1938-1948

during the ceremony presided by the Rabbi Fahri at Jeanne Garnier's House. The reader will also find it one the website of the OSE,

http://www.ose-france.org

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Tribute to Jacqueline Lévy-Geneste

by

Katy Hazan

I met Jacqueline in 1994, contact was made by Vivette Samuel. I had just interviewed the Director of the first children’s home of the OSE for the little ones that had opened in 1945. And I fell at once under her charm.

With her clear and sweet voice, she revives « the little World » of Bellevue in Meudon she was so proud of. She had designed it all - up to the furniture and washbasins - for these children aged between 3 to 6 years old, who were without relatives but whom she had taken under her wing.

She knew them all : Maxime, the wild child, whose mother was interned, Rosette who fled her mummy, René whose father was blind.

She applied the methods of Maria Montessori learned at Miss BRANDT’s school, and had in turn imagined a kindergarten school integrated into the house. On Fridays evenings for Shabbat, a very large semicircle iron table gathered everybody: she took beside her, in turn, for the week, the child who asked for it.

Only last year did she tell me about her role during the war. My deepest regret is not to have filmed her. But would she have accepted ? Considering her great modesty, I believe not. A young “Éclaireuse Israélite” (EI), native of Strasbourg, she was the cubmistress of Lilianne Klein-Lieber and many other young people who played a role in the rescue of the children.

She was in Blois in May 1940, and as the Germans threatened to blow up the bridge she couldn’t do her high school diploma. Like many others, she took refuge in Limoges and, as Niny, was attending the kindergarten school of Miss BRANDT, who was herself a refugee in Strasbourg, Limoges and then Vichy. That second year, Mrs FIELD of the Unitarian Service Committee recruited someone to take care of the Spanish children of Rivesaltes' internment camp.

Jacqueline accepted and became a voluntary assistant. She organized a kindergarten and some came to serenade her, for her alone, under the windows of the shed where she ate with the OSE people. She was acquainted with Dora Wertzberg, Simone Weil-Lipman and above all with Andrée Salomon.

In November 1942, there will be no more children in camp, neither Spanish nor Jews. She offered her services to the OSE. Andrée Salomon proposed her to look after a group of teenagers from a house under surveillance at Eaubonne, in the Eastern Pyrenees. On Christmas day, the Gestapo arrived to search for a German Communist. She presented her papers with the Jewish stamp. They promised to return the next day, she didn’t await them! She left to Solignac (Dordogne), obtained true false paper under the name of Jacqueline Leroy. She then supervised other teenagers in the “maison des Lutins” at Moutiers-Salins.

At the end of 1943, at the request of the OSE, she went back to Paris to escort Jewish children to the Castel of la Guette, which was turned into a national rescue house. In that group was Marcel Mangel, mime Marceau.

Together with the executives of the OSE, she is among those who found Georges Garel in Lyon at the liberation in September 1944.

Everything was to be rebuilt. She is asked for a report on the child’s needs. It is the adventure of Bellevue. She becomes in 1949 General Inspector of the children centers. Her work at the OSE stopped in the 50’s for another life.

Joseph Weill will dedicate her a book in November 1944. Jacqueline, blushing, showed it to me : « In memory of her admirable presentation that makes any ill-bred child - who are each adult - regret not having begun his life in her garden ».

This garden, this love of life and of children, Dear Jacqueline, that’s what we have inherited and makes us richer.

Katy Hazan, Historian

The readers can get the book of Katy Hazan at the OSE, by calling +33 1 53 38 20 09.

 

 

ψ  [Psi] •LE TEMPS DUNON
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