Today, as every year on April 30, I commemorate the liberation of the #Ravensbrück concentration camp—78 yrs ago.
On that day, my mother, who was there, was "celebrating" her 25th birthday.
I pay tribute to her today.
On that day, Hitler killed himself in his bunker. #Thread
1/13
Mom was a member of the #Resistance in Belgium. She was arrested by the Gestapo in 1943 after her network was denounced. She went from prison to prison as a Nacht und Nebel political prisoner.
Her false papers concealed her Jewish origins.
Her last stop was #Ravensbruck.
2/13
When she was released, she was suffering from typhus and tuberculosis and weighed 30 kilos.
She was taken in by the Swedish Red Cross and gradually recovered in #Sweden.
Forever my gratitude to the wonderful persons who took care of her.
3/13
She was one of the first women to take the Belgian diplomatic examination in 1946, closed to women before WWII.
She continued her career in France, the UK & NYC before becoming an intl civil servant in 1968. She retired in 1985 & crossed the barrier of life on Aug. 31, 2001.
4/13
At that time, women in the diplomatic career could not marry. So Dad & Mom weren't (my father was married).
I was conceived in NYC when my mother was posted. It was complicated: think of the prejudice in the 1960s against single mothers and of the pressure she received..
5/13
Mom's colleagues either quit, stayed single, had affairs (but having a child was a choice Mom was the only one to make), or were Lesbian (a tribute to two of them who welcomed me to the US as a teen—I think Mom wanted me to find out that this was something "normal"...
6/13
..., which should be clear today, but was uncommon in the 1970s).
The feminist struggle back then was those first.
What my mother experienced in #Ravensbruck because of her fight for freedom also imposed freedom in life.
7/13
But I would especially like to come back to what she said to me about the #Resistance, which I sometimes quoted in my essays.
For her and her companions, she affirmed, there was a certainty: they were fighting against absolute #evil.
8/13
It was a battle between good and evil, life and death, the future or final destruction. There was no middle way, no holding back.
My mother used to tell me that she had seen this again in the face of mass crimes in #Srebrenica or #Rwanda.
She knew history can repeat itself.
9/13
As a Jew (but who insisted on saying that she had been arrested as a Resistance fighter), she perceived the absolute uniqueness of the #Holocaust, but at the same time she saw the permanence of #genocide and its recurrence in history.
10/13
In the ethnic cleansing in #Bosnia in particular, she told me she saw the same mechanisms at work.
Each historical moment is certainly specific, but the mechanics of mass crime are repeated. Holocaust denial also comes together.
11/13
Of course, I can't make her talk about the Russian war of extermination against Ukraine—after Syria.
But I know what her principles were.
I know what she thought about our strategic collapse before WWII.
I know she would have been uncompromising after the supreme crime.
12/13
And when #Ukraine is liberated and #Russia is finally down, I will celebrate in thought with her.
Over centuries and beyond death, a common and perpetual struggle.
13/13
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Ten theses.
A thread.
🧵
1 We're at war with Russia, not because we've declared it, but because it's waging war on us.
#OurWar
2 Russia is waging a war of extermination. That's just a fact.
It's a war without limits, neither in time nor in space.
3 With a radical enemy, there can be no negotiation. Any negotiation means both more crime — in fact, it's a license to kill given to Putin, especially in the Russian-ruled areas of Ukraine — and more insecurity.
As those of you who have been following me for some time know, April 30 is a special day for me.
On that day in 1945, the #Ravensbrück concentration camp was liberated. My mother, Martha Tenzer, a resistance fighter in Belgium who had been arrested by the Gestapo in 1943,... 1/8
was “celebrating” her 25th birthday there.
She would have turned 104 today.
She had joined the Resistance at the age of 20, and was Jewish. Fortunately, her false papers concealed her origin.
When she was liberated and handed over to the Red Cross of Sweden,... 2/8
where she spent long months convalescing, she weighed 30 kg and was suffering from numerous illnesses (typhus, turberculosis...). She survived.
After the war, she was one of the first women to enter the Belgian diplomatic service (closed to women before the war). 3/8
So wonderful to listen again to the awesome @avalaina, Nobel Peace Prize, whom I met in Kyiv last July, today at @WarsawForum #WSF interviewed by @AslanTV.
She rightly emphasized the lack of bravery of the world leaders.
Some edited extracts in this #thread. 1/7
"I wish no one had to experience what we're experiencing now with Russia's absolute war against the Ukrainian people since February 2014.
We already had so many stories of people who survived captivity and the worst tortures that we documented.
We must never get used to this. 2/7
The @IntlCrimCourt will only be able to try a limited number of cases of war criminals and criminals against humanity, but we have tens of thousands. This risks limiting accountability. Yet we cannot refuse to dispense justice. We'll just have to find a way to do it.
3/7
Some reminders in the form of a short #thread.
1 Democratic leaders should avoid talking about "peace talks" or "peace agreements" even in the distant future, at least as long as Putin's regime, or the equivalent, is in place.
Period. 1/6 🧵
2 Let's stop lending any interest to supposed #mediation attempts. We do not need a mediator. We need to ensure #Ukraine's victory. That's all there is to it.
Western governments should stop with this desire to be deceived all the time. 2/6
3 Let's stop fussing about #securityguarantees for Ukraine. It needs a NATO+. It deserves it and @NATO would benefit from it too. All its territories must be liberated.
I do not suggest buying the sometimes-heard thesis of a guarantee on a part of the territories. 3/6
Itw superbement menée par @ilasserre avec @ZelenskyyUa
"Le monde ne parlera plus de la même manière à la Russie. Les Occidentaux vont devoir revoir leur politique 🇷🇺, même si un autre dirigeant arrive au pouvoir à Moscou. Vous devez changer de vision."
1 lefigaro.fr/international/…
"L'escalade, ce sont les Russes qui en sont responsables. Ils ont torturé, assassiné, enterré des gens vivants. Je savais par les livres que ce genre de meurtres & atrocités de masse existait. Je ne pouvais pas imaginer que cela puisse se reproduire dans le monde d'aujourd'hui"
2
"Concernant les partenaires qui m'ont prévenu, qu'ont-ils fait pour l'éviter ? Que nous ont-ils donné depuis 2014? Qu'ont-ils fait pour éviter une attaque? Pourquoi l'Otan ne s'est-elle pas engagée si elle savait une invasion probable ? Ts les efforts diplomatiques ont échoué."
3
10 principles for these weeks (recap).
1 In the medium to long term, the main cost would be the non-defeat of #Russia.
It would be terrible for #Ukraine, #Syria, #Georgia, #Belarus, #Moldova, #Africa..., but also for Europe and the world.
It should dictate our strategic goal.
2 In the short term, the worst cost is measured in terms of Ukrainian lives (civilians, military, people in the occupied territories, incl. Crimean Tatars).
This is what must matter to us first.
We must defeat #Russia as quickly as possible with all possible conventional weapons.
3 Western leaders must banish certain words, including:
- escalation risks;
- red lines;
- peace talks;
- negotiations;
- compromise;
- balance;
- architecture of stability...
Words matter.
Narrative matter.