André Berkover, deported to Auschwitz at the age of 14, was one of the most active witnesses of the memory of the Shoah among younger generations. He died in Saint-Maur on Saturday, August 18, 2018 at the age of 89. The Shoah Memorial honors him.
Portrait of André Berkover. France, 1940s
Fellow deportees, professors, members of the National Federation of Deportees and Internees, Resistants and Patriots, and the Foundation for the Memory of the Deportation, The mayor of Montreuil and his deputies, along with many other people, gathered at the old Montreuil cemetery on 24 August to pay their last respects to André Berkover, a survivor of the Shoah.
André Berkover was born on 29 July 1929 in Paris to a Romanian-Polish family, and grew up in the 20th arrondissement of the capital. On 28 June 1944, he was arrested by the Gestapo while hiding at your aunt’s house. Deported to Drancy, he found his brother Guy there before being deported by convoy no. 76 on 30 June 1944, with his mother. At Auschwitz, he followed the group of men over 16 years old when he was only 14. He will be selected for work and assigned to Auschwitz III Buna-Monowitz. Later, he managed to escape during the "death marches" and was helped by Polish farmers and treated by Soviet doctors before being repatriated to Paris. At the Hotel Lutetia, André finds his father and older sister, but his mother and brother will not return from the camps. André became an industrial designer and settled in Montreuil in 1964 with his wife Liliane and two children.
In 1995, during the 50 years from the liberation of the campsand while the collective memory of the Shoahwakes up, André Berkover decides to speak for the first time. Since then, he has not stopped testifying to middle and high school students, especially between 2005 and 2017, a period during which he was one of the most active witnesses at the Shoah Memorial, in schools or for the Auschwitz Memory Fund Association. André Berkover also regularly intervened in theschools in Montreuil and accompanied the city’s high school students duringstudy trips to Auschwitz. In 2007, André Berkover published histestimony André Berkover, registration number A165572, Société des gens de lettres de France, 2007.
A day of tribute to André Berkover will take place at the town hall of Montreuil this autumn.
All our thoughts are with his loved ones.
We invite you to (re)discover the testimony "My liberation" by André Bervover in video:
Deported in 1944 by convoy no. 76 at only 14 years old, André Berkover had survived the concentration camps where he lost his mother and brother. He passed away on August 18, 2018 at the age of 89. The Shoah Memorial wishes to pay tribute to him.
Portrait of André Berkover. France, 1940s
On 19 August, André Berkover was buried in the cemetery of Montreuil where his fellowdeportees had come to pay their last respects, professors, members of the National Federation of Deportees and Internees, Resistants and Patriots, and the Foundation for the Memory of the Deportation.
André Berkover was born on 29 July 1929 in Paris, into a family of Romanian-Polish origin and lived in the 20th arrondissement of the capital. On 28 June 1944, he was arrested by the Gestapo while hiding at his aunt’s house. Deported to Drancy, he found his brother Guy there before being deported by convoy no. 76 on June 30, 1944, with his mother. André will then follow the group of men over 16 years old and will be selected for work, assigned to Auschwitz III Buna-Monowitz. Later, André managed to escape during the death marches and was helped by Polish farmers, then treated by Soviets. Back in Paris at the Hotel Lutetia, he meets his father and older sister. André Berkover then became an industrial designer and settled in Montreuil in 1964 with his wife Liliane and their two children, Sylvie and Thierry.
André Berkover will begin to bear witness in 1995, on the occasion of 50 years since the liberation of the camps, as the collective memory of the Shoah awakens. He was one of the most active witnessesat the Shoah Memorial, notably for his numerous interventions with middle and high school students between 2005 and 2017. A day of tribute to the town hall of Montreuil will take place this autumn.
We invite you to (re)discover the testimony of André Berkover "My liberation" in video:
