Tribute to Marcel Cohen

It is with great sadness that we learned of the death of the writer Marcel Cohen on 31 July.

Marcel Cohen was born on 9 October 1937 in Asnières sur Seine, to a Jewish family originally from Turkey. Marcel attends the arrest of his parents, grandparents, his uncle and his sister as he returns from a walk with the domestic worker. Annette, that’s his name, will keep the young Marcel close to her and take him to his family in the countryside, in Ille-et-Vilaine, where he will remain hidden until the end of the war.

Interned in Drancy, his father, uncle and grandparents were deported by convoy 59, while his mother was sent to the Rothschild hospital with the baby, Monique, until she reached the age of 6 months. They were both then transferred to the camp of Drancy and deported on 17 December 1943 by convoy 63. None will return.

In his book "On the inner stage", Marcel Cohen evokes slices of life of his family members who have disappeared through objects that belonged to them and that he was able to preserve. It was during a public presentation of this book that Marcel Cohen expressed his concern about the future of these objects.

The Shoah Memorial naturally offered him to keep them in its archives: among them, the last letter from his mother, Maria, and Monique’s baby bracelet of which there are no photos. On the occasion of this donation, Marcel Cohen had accepted our invitation to come and talk about these objects and this gesture of transmission, with modesty and emotion.

We send our deepest condolences to his widow, Mrs. Jacqueline Cohen.