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 died 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 August 19, André Berkover was buried in the cemetery of Montreuil where his fellowdeportees came 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 July 29, 1929 in Paris, into a family of Romanian-Polish origin and lived in the 20th arrondissement of the capital. On June 28, 1944, he was arrested by the Gestapo while hiding at his aunt’s house. Deported to Drancy, he finds 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 Lutetia hotel, 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 testify in 1995, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of 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:
