History
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In a moving book, the historian tells the story of his family’s departure in 1962 to a hostile suburb of Paris, which was unwelcoming to Algerian Jews, considered as “colonizers”.
The first scene is poignant. We are in Algeria, in Constantine, on Grand street, in the apartment occupied by the Stora parents with their children, Benjamin and Annie. On a mild April afternoon in 1962, a few weeks after the signing of the Evian agreements that ended the Algerian War. Two FLN militants came to have coffee. Elie Stora bombards them with questions while Benjamin, 11, tries to make himself invisible in a corner of the living room. Will the Jews keep equal citizenship? What would be the place of the Jewish community in this independent Muslim state? The two men look uncomfortable, they answer off-topic as the tension between them escalates. Running out of arguments, they finally concede that the FLN has not yet decided the future of the Jews of Algeria. As soon as the two visitors leave, Elie Stora turns to his wife and declares, “It’s decided, we’re leaving. We will not be safe. Too much has happened here. We cannot live in this uncertainty.” Benjamin Stora’s childhood ends that day.
It’s all about survival
This is what the historian relates in a moving book that tells more about the family’s arrival in a Parisian suburb than their departure from Algeria, but this first scene is so powerful that it overshadows everything else. Even the settling in Montreuil, in the middle of winter.
