She died at the Saint-Laurent polyclinic in Rennes. The writer Magda Hollander-Lafon died on Saturday at the age of 95. Born into a Jewish family in Hungary in 1927, she was deported in February 1944 to the Aushwitz-Birkenau concentration camp from where she managed to escape in April 1945. But all the rest of her family had perished in the death camp. A survivor of the Shoah, she was taken in in Belgium upon her return from the camps before moving to France in 1954.
A child psychologist, she recounted the Nazi horror in the book Four small pieces of bread released in 2012 before publishing the text in 2021 Tomorrow in the palm of our hands aimed at young people. Throughout her life, Magda Hollander-Lafon never stopped reaching out to middle and high school students to testify and raise awareness. “I must live to bear witness to what happened so that it never happens again in the world. I feel the danger and the trivialization of humiliating remarks,” she indicated. in an interview given in 2018 to West France.
“A wonderful source of inspiration”
When his death was announced, several personalities paid tribute to him, including Nathalie Appéré, mayor of Rennes. “Throughout her life, Magda Hollander-Lafon worked to build a path of harmony and peace,” she said. “Her energy, her commitment, her kindness will remain for all of us a tremendous source of inspiration and an invitation to constantly cultivate the values of humanism and tolerance that she carried so forcefully,” continues the elected socialist.
Monsignor Pierre d’Ornellas, Archbishop of Rennes, also paid tribute to his memory. “Magda Hollander-Lafon will remain a light of hope in life,” he says. His words compel us to remember the unspeakable drama of the Shoah. »