History has lost one of its great witnesses.
Benjamin Orenstein, one of the last survivors of the Shoah, who had devoted a large part of his life to telling new generations about the horror of the Shoah, died Wednesday in Lyon (Rhône), at the age of 94 , announced the Crif Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.
"After being silent for years, flabbergasted by what he had lived", Benjamin Orenstein had not stopped since the trial of Klaus Barbie in 1987 - "an electric shock" for him - to testify in colleges and high schools on this past and tirelessly carry its history, underlines the Representative Council of Jewish institutions in regional France in a press release.
"His disappearance leaves a very big void"
Born August 4, 1926 in Annopol in a Polish Jewish family, deported to Auschwitz at the age of 18 (registration number "B4416"), until recently he was president of the Auschwitz survivors' association, specifies Crif , confirming information from the regional press.
He had received from the hands of the president of the Consistory of Lyon Marcel Dreyfuss in 2015 the insignia of Knight of the Legion of Honor.
He had settled in Lyon after the Second World War.
"His disappearance leaves a very big void that only, perhaps, will be able to fill all the young people who will have had the very great privilege of hearing him", underlines the president of Crif Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Nicole Bornstein, quoted in the press release .
A play, created to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, and a book, “These words for burial”, recount his life and his commitment.
Crif Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes also announces the death on Tuesday in Lyon of another activist for the memory of the Shoah and the fight against anti-Semitism, Pierre Lévy.
