A SONG IS BORN
(Sorry. I don’t know who wrote this introduction)
What a beautiful story and presentation. The vocalist was excellent as you will see and hear.
The first time Andrée Geulen, a 20-year-old teacher in a Brussels, Belgium school, was confronted with the persecution of the Jews was when one day some of her students arrived at school with the compulsory yellow star on their clothes. Like many other Belgians, until that time Geulen hadn’t paid attention to the anti-Jewish measures and the persecution of the Jews. But once she was faced with the discrimination of her students, she decided to act. She ordered all her students to wear aprons to school, thus covering the humiliating marking imposed on the Jews.
In the summer of 1942, as persecution of Belgium’s Jews began, an underground Jewish group took form in cooperation with the Belgian underground and set out to rescue Jewish children by hiding them in various places around the country. With love for her students who would surely face death at the hands of the Nazis, Andrée Geulen (then a twenty-year-old teacher) hung the Star of David on her Cross of Jesus and one-by-one walked 300 children out of the Holocaust and into life. They called herMademoiselle. Her story is a lesson in courage and compassion.
The most active team consisted of twelve-women, mostly non-Jewish. This admirable clandestine campaign was unique by the complexity of its structure and the degree of its success.
There are unsung heroes in this story too. They are the men and women who subsequently took these children in at risk to themselves. They raised and presented the children as their own. They taught them to put on the face of Christianity for safety sake while secretly teaching them to honor their own Judaism.
In 1989, Andrée was declared as a Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, Israel.
The only remaining survivor from the team is Andre Geulen, and on September 4, a great number of the children who had been hidden, celebrated her ninetieth birthday. The celebration included a screening of a DVD in which singer Keren Hadar performed a song in her honor. The song stirred a great deal of emotion.
At that 1998 reunion, Andrée Geulen said “I was then a young woman; not better, nor worse than others. Life had kept me isolated from the major upheavals around me; I did not know unhappiness. Then, suddenly, I found myself, a young teacher, confronted with this tragedy that befell you. I could not accept it. I met you; I came looking for you at your homes. You placed your little hand in mine (the other hand held on to the large suitcase with all the treasures prepared with tears by your mothers), and we left on our journey…. For a long time now I wanted to say to you ‘thank you’ for having taught me the immeasurable stupidity of racism. This will remain with me for all of my life …. Never again have I felt such exaltation, such satisfaction, except when raising my own children; no other work has filled me with such pride. Imagine what this represented for a 20-year-old woman to go to sleep at night and think – another five children saved; another five children spared deportation… I loved you then so much; I still love you as much today. ”
This song, composed very shortly before the event, arose from an impulse on the part of one of the hidden children – Shaul Harel, who today is a professor of pediatric neurology.
And this is how it happened…
One warm summer day at the Isrotel Dead Sea Hotel, the Harel family was visiting for a performance of the opera Ada at Massada. Shaul Harel was lolling alone in the whirlpool bath. As the warm water and the complete solitude began to take effect, he wondered intensely what gift he could bring to Andre for her birthday. “After all, she already has everything. After the war, she married a Jewish attorney, they were blessed with two daughters and with grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and to this day she is surrounded by the love of the children she rescued.”
Suddenly, as to Archimedes in his warm bath, the Muse descended to him. Although he did not emerge with a mathematical equation – since mathematics was never his subject – he just as suddenly decided to write her a poem. And this is not to be taken lightly, since for many years he had written nothing but medical documentation and articles.
The warmth of the water and the atmosphere brought lines tumbling into his mind, and as if possessed, he burst into the hotel room and told his wife, Dahlia, to sit down and transcribe because otherwise the lines would “get away” from him. His wife raised her eyebrows, thinking that the desert heat had overpowered him. But she consented and soon a poem was on paper telling Andre’s story. Shaul’s imagination took him further and he said that the poem should be set to music and his favorite singer, Keren Hadar, should perform it.
Since the poem was written in free verse, Dahlia worked rhymes into it. The poem was read to Keren and she was moved to tears. She said that it was suitable for setting to music and that she would like to sing it. She recommended Rafi Kadishzon, a prolific and well-known composer. Rafi heard the poem, liked it, and immediately recommended Dan Almagor, a master of the Hebrew word, to adjust the text for the music. In the end, Dan Almagor contributed greatly to the rhythm, to the refrain, and to the perfect fit of the lyrics.
All this occurred in the course of two weeks. A week later, the song was recorded, the DVD visuals were prepared, and copies were printed with graphics and with a French and English translation.
‘Mademoiselle’ sung by Keren Hadar in Hebrew in 1998:
English subtitles:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
French subtitles:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
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