Tribute to Henri Borlant who passed away on December 3, 2024

Portrait of Henri Borlant posing at the sanatorium, Black Forest (Bavaria). Germany, 1945. © Shoah Memorial/Henri Borlant coll.

Henri Borlant was born on June 5, 1927, in Paris. His parents came from Russia and were naturalized French before his birth. He has eight brothers and sisters. The family is evacuated in 1939 in Maine-et-Loire at Saint-Lambert-du-Lattay.

Henri is enrolled in a Catholic school and he is baptized. Henri Borlant is arrested on July 15, 1942 during the Great Western Roundup then

deported with his father Aron, his brother Bernard and his sister Denise on July 20, 1942 in convoy No. 8 to Auschwitz-Birkenau. During transport, he throws a ticket: "Darling mom, it seems that we are going to Ukraine to do the harvests." The letter will reach his mother Rachel thanks to a railwayman. He is fifteen years old.

Separated from his family who do not survive, Henri is assigned to the Auschwitz-I camp and will notably be assigned to a masonry commando.

On October 28, 1944, he was evacuated. After several weeks in the camp of Orianenburg-Sachsenhausen, he is led to Ohrdruf, an annex camp of Buchenwald. He escapes before the evacuation of the camp on the night of April 3 to 4.

With two prisoners of war, he is hidden in an attic until the Americans arrive.   He then brings a group of scouts to the camp of Ohrdruf. On his return, Henri Borlant is sick with tuberculosis. He nevertheless passes the baccalaureate and completes medical studies.

In the 1990s, he began to testify and gather testimonies within the association Témoignage pour mémoire. He sits on the Foundation for the Memory of the Deportation and on the educational commission of the Shoah Memorial.

Charles Naparstek, Philippe Wodka, Jean Lemberger, Charly Zlotnik and Henri Borlant posing in front of a convalescent home in Lourdes (Hautes-Pyrénées). France, 1945. © Memorial of the Shoah/coll. Henri Borlant

Henri Borlant published with Éditions du Seuil in 2011 Thank you for surviving.

The Shoah Memorial offers its sincere condolences to his wife Hella, their daughters and all of his family. The Shoah Memorial pays tribute to the memory of a figure in the memory of the Shoah in France, deeply humble and committed.

Photo on the left: Meeting with Henri Borlant at the auditorium of the Shoah Memorial. Paris 14/04/2011.

© Shoah Memorial

Photo on the right: Portrait of Henri, Odette and Léon Borlant, survivors of the Shoah. 1999.

© Shoah Memorial/photo Evvy Eisen

Testimony of Henri Borlant, deported from France, survivor (2014)