One of the last great witnesses of the Holocaust has died.

Raphaël Esrail, president and of the Union of Auschwitz deportees (UDA), died of cancer on Saturday January 22 at the Lannion hospital, in the Côtes-d'Armor, at the age of 96. the UDA announced in a statement on Sunday.

"He was the embodiment of the Union of Deportees," Isabelle Ernot, scientific director of the UDA, told AFP, adding, "He was an essential player in the collection of memory, its enhancement education and its transmission. 

A young Jewish resistance fighter

Raphaël Esrail was born on May 10, 1925 in Turkey "in a Jewish family which emigrated to France the following year", recalls the UDA in its press release.

Member of the Jewish resistance in Lyon where he made false papers, he was arrested and then interned in the Drancy camp, before being deported at the age of 19 to Auschwitz-Birkenau on February 3, 1944, by convoy 67, the same as the Pikovsky family to which France 24 devoted a web documentary. 

In January 2020, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the camp, he gave an interview to France 24 during which he recounted this trip to hell: "You put men and women in cattle cars . You give them a toilet bucket and a bucket of water. They go three days without eating. People have to do their business in front of others. Dogs are not treated that way. The dehumanization started on the train.”

Raphaël, born in 1925, was deported by convoy n°67, that of the #Pikovsky family, on February 3, 1944. He wrote his story in a book entitled "L'espoir d'un kiss".

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— Stephanie Trouillard (@Stbslam) January 13, 2020

"An impression of violence"

On February 6, 1944, it was the shock of arriving at Auschwitz-Birkenau: "The first impression is an impression of violence. It was a morning, it was cold. People were asked to come down very quickly and leave their things. We hear 'schnell, schnell'. The first people we see are people dressed like convicts with some sort of pajamas".

"There was a very clear and very frank separation on arrival. What we called the selection", he had described.

"I don't know if you can imagine what it might be like in the minds of all those who had with them what represented their lives: their luggage, their belongings, their papers, their money. Everything must be left behind. says 'you'll find them later'."

The young man was then designated for the work, unlike 985 people in the convoy who were gassed immediately on the 1214 parts of Drancy.

For almost a year, he works in a factory and survives in inhuman conditions.

"We are here to die. We are in a real genocide. Everyone must die," he summed up.

"You are a sub-human, you have no value".

The largest killing center © Screenshot F24

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The Death Marches

In January 1945, he faced the death marches.

"On January 18, 1945, the Auschwitz camp was evacuated. 60,000 people were thrown onto the roads of Upper Silesia. We left in columns of 500. We marched for three days and three nights," he said. remembered.

"Leaving with nothing, walking in shoes with wooden soles. There were men and women who were shot at the end of the column because they couldn't walk."

From this evacuation, Raphaël Esrail retains the traumatic image of these last victims: "I cannot forget. They had fallen as if in prayer, their legs frozen. They were put on the side". 

He stays a few days in Dachau where he spends seven days without eating or drinking, then he is transferred to a sub-camp, Ampfing Waldlager.

On April 25, 1945, under pressure from Allied troops, this camp was evacuated.

Raphaël was liberated by the Americans near the village of Tutzing on May 1, 1945. 

“Luck kept me going,” he simply explained before adding: “Either we are taken by despair and we let ourselves go, or we want to fight. I think it's an animal instinct. We have to hold on. Me, I had a life expectancy. 

"The Hope of a Kiss"

Back in France, he finds "this hope", Liliane Badour, a young woman he met in Drancy, also a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau, with whom he had fallen in love.

The two survivors married in 1948. Raphaël Esrail will tell this story in a book entitled "L'espoir d'un kiss" (Robert Laffont) and published in 2017. 

After studying at the central school in Lyon, he had a long career with Gaz de France, until 1988. In 1986, he became the general secretary of the Union of deportees, then in 2008 took over the presidency of the association, where he pursues "a mission of knowledge and resilience that the survivors have given themselves", specifies the UDA. 

"Tireless witness, visionary president, extraordinary personality, Raphaël Esrail is no more but his work remains and will remain alive. His presence surrounds us with his benevolence and his intelligence, it commands us to act in his footsteps", writes the Union of Deportees, which will pay homage to him in Paris.

Raphaël Esrail will be buried in Biarritz next week.

With AFP

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