- Document ID: 9752715
- Document Collection: 1.1.5.7 Nummern-Namen-Kartei Buchenwald (Maenner)
- Link to Online Archive: https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/de/document/9752715
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https://ressources.memorialdelashoah.org/notice.php?q=identifiant_origine:(FRMEMSH0408707150420)
Hirsch, known as Henri Borlant, was born on 05/06/1927 in Paris (France). He was the fourth of nine children from a modest family of Russian Jewish origin. When war broke out, the family was evacuated to Anjou. Henri had just turned fifteen when, on 15/07/1942, German soldiers, accompanied by the Gestapo, came to arrest him. After spending a week at the major seminary in Angers (Maine-et-Loire), which was used as an internment camp, Henri was deported on convoy 8, which left on 20/07/1942 for Auschwitz-Birkenau (Poland) with his father, brother Bernard and sister Denise. On arrival, Henri was assigned to a youth barrack and worked at the Maurerschule, the masonry school. His father died shortly afterwards. In September 1942, he was transferred to Block 7 at Auschwitz, where he remained until October 1943. He then found himself back in Birkenau, where he worked in various Kommandos, doing earthworks and roofing, having already become an old hand. As the Soviets approached, the camp was evacuated by train to the camps at Oranienburg (Germany), Sachsenhausen (Germany) and finally Ohrdruf, part of Buchenwald (Germany), where Henri arrived in November 1944. He spent six months working in the canteen of the SS camp.
Ahead of the arrival of the American troops, Henri and a friend managed to escape from the camp and reach the town of Ohrdruf, liberated the next day by the Americans.Taken to a camp in Eisenach (Germany) with other prisoners, he was then repatriated by train to Montigny-les-Metz (Moselle, France), where he arrived on 16/04/1945.
The same day, he returned to Paris, where he was reunited with his mother and younger brothers and sisters.He was the only member of his deported family to return from the camps.After several months of convalescence, he started secondary school, made up for all the years he had lost and became a doctor. He has four daughters and seven grandchildren.After remaining silent for a long time, from the 1990s onwards he took part in various initiatives aimed at ensuring that the voices of survivors were heard and preserved, notably taking part in the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies.In 2002, he took part in the creation of the documentary series 14 récits d’Auschwitz with Annette Wieviorka and published his story „Merci d’avoir survécu“ in 2011.
Henri Borlant | Chemins de mémoire
Portraits de l’année 1942 - 1942: des rafles à la déportation 1942: des rafles à la déportation
Henri Borlant - Les Mains de la Paix - Photographies Séverine Desmarest
Témoignage de la Shoah : Henri Borlant (2015)
Témoignage d’Henri Borlant : ma libération