Henri Borlant, the only survivor among 6,000 Jewish children deported from France to Auschwitz in 1942, passed away at the age of 98, according to reports from Le Figaro, Mediapart, and BFMTV.
A prominent figure in Holocaust education in France, Borlant devoted his later years to ensuring the memory of the Shoah endured.
Born on June 5, 1927, in Paris, Borlant was the fourth of ten children in his family. They lived in the working-class 13th arrondissement until August 1939, when the threat of World War II prompted them to flee to Maine-et-Loire.
In 1942, at the age of 15, Borlant was arrested alongside his father Aaron, brother Bernard, and sister Denise during a roundup by Nazi forces.
The family was deported to Auschwitz in overcrowded cattle cars, an ordeal Borlant later described in detail.
Upon arrival at the death camp, he was tattooed with the number 51055 on his left arm—a mark he hid for many years. Tragically, his father and siblings perished in the Holocaust.
After surviving Auschwitz, Borlant was transferred between several concentration camps before escaping from Buchenwald in Germany on April 3, 1945, just before it was liberated by American forces.
Educating future generations with his story
For decades, Borlant remained silent about his experiences, but in his later years, he began sharing his story to educate future generations.
In 2012, he published his memoir, Thank You for Having Survived. The book became a cornerstone of his efforts to narrate the atrocities of the Holocaust, which he described as his duty to ensure “the whole world would know.”
Borlant became a regular speaker at schools, recounting his deportation and survival to young audiences. Anne-Sophie Goepfert, a professor at the Collège de Wintzenheim in Haut-Rhin, described him as “tirelessly dedicated to telling young people about his deportation to Auschwitz at the age of 15.”
His humility and commitment were widely recognized. The Shoah Memorial in Paris saluted Borlant as a “figure of the memory of the Shoah in France,” emphasizing his “deep humility and dedication.”
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