Elis et nous

In 1956, Elie Buzyn, a former Auschwitz deportee had his camp ID number tattooed on his arm by the Germans removed. In its place, there is now a white scar, puckered like an old burn, the mark of a branding iron. Elie preciously kept the sliver of tattooed skin wrapped in a handkerchief. But one day, someone steals his jacket with the priceless “parchment” in one of the pockets. That day, Elie’s world collapses. Not only does the past come rushing back, but more importantly, the disappearance of the executioner’s mark brings to light a deeper symbolic wound, a more insidious form of alienation, specific to the perversity of the final solution. Elie is convinced that with the theft of this small piece of skin he has had his existence stolen, whereas in fact is it this very mark that deprived him of his life sixty years ago…