Tribute to Liliane Esrail who died this Friday, May 1st in Paris.

Liliane Esrail née Badour, a survivor of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, died on Friday 1^er May in Paris.

Left Photo – Liliane Badour Esrail some time before her deportation. Photo Credit: Shoah Memorial/coll. Raphael Esrail

Phtoto Droite – Liliane Badour Esrail, 2011 – Photo credit: IAK/Michéle Dèodat

Liliane Badour was born on 9 June 1924 in Biarritz. Her parents disappeared when she was a teenager. She is welcomed into the home of her maternal grandparents, Jews of Russian origin, hoteliers in Biarritz. At his side, his two young brothers, Henri born in 1927 and René born in 1931. The three children are baptized Catholics. The baptism of the youngest, René, which took place in 1941 is not recognized by the authorities of the Vichy regime. It was this young boy whom the Feldgendarmerie came to arrest on 10 January 1944. Refusing to let him go, Liliane is taken along with her brother Henri. After internment in Bayonne prison, they were transferred to the Drancy camp on 25 January.

At the Drancy camp, she met Raphaël Esrail, a young student arrested in Lyon for Resistance. All four were deported on 3 February 1944 to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp by Convoy 67. Henri and René are gassed as soon as they arrive, Liliane enters the Birkenau camp and receives number 75127. Initially assigned to the Lyrickommando, in May she joined the Union Werke and formed a solidarity group there with notably Ida Grinspan and Léa Rohatyn.

During the death marches in January 1945, she was evacuated to the camps of Ravensbrück and then Neustadt-Glewe where she was liberated on 2 May 1945.

On her return to Biarritz, at the end of May 1945, she found her grandmother again, her grandfather having died during his deportation. In January 1948, she married Raphaël Esrail.

Liliane Esrail was a Knight of the Legion of Honor and decorated with the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

The Shoah Memorial offers its sincere condolences to Raphaël Esrail and their family, and salutes the memory of a figure from the Auschwitz Union.

The story of Liliane and Raphaël is told in the book published in 2017, L'espérance d’un baiser chez Robert Laffont.

An exhibition presented in Berlin in May 2011 by the International Auschwitz Committee "Mein Bruder, meine Utc, my brother, my sister – my brother, my sister" retraced his journey.

His testimony can be found on the website of the Union of Auschwitz Deportees: Memories of the Deportations, 1939-1945 http://memoiresdesdeportations.org/fr/personne/esrail-liliane