Le témoin imprévu

Memoirs of Wajsblat, a Jew born in 1929 in Łódź, as recounted by Lambert. Describes how, between 1940-44, he survived the harsh conditions in the Łódź ghetto, where his parents died. In 1942 his younger brother was deported to Chełmno and gassed upon arrival. In July 1944 Wajsblat himself was deported to Auschwitz. In October he was selected for the gas chamber together with 400-500 other prisoners, but survived because Mengele ordered the doors of the chamber to be opened in the middle of the gassing. Soon after he was sent for slave labor in Braunswick, Germany, and in March 1945 he was sent on a death march. After the liberation he settled in Paris. In 1948 he participated in the Israeli war of independence, but afterwards returned to Paris.