Former Minister of Justice Robert Badinter died at the age of 95 on Friday. Badinter was the architect of the law that abolished the death penalty in France.
He was born in 1928 in a modest home, to Russian Jewish parents who immigrated from Bessarabia. His father, Simon, was arrested by the Gestapo in Lyon in 1943 and deported to Sobibor (Poland) He won't come back. The man will remain wounded and stunned by the Shoah for life, and will make it a recurring theme in plays after his political career.