Paris:
Jacques Morelic, a former Assen French press journalist who survived the deportation to the Buchenwald concentration camp during World War II, passed away at the age of 102, his family said.
Moalic passed away at his Paris home on Thursday, his daughter told AFP.
Moalic was deported to Buchenwald on December 18, 1943 for an act of resistance against the German Nazi occupation of France, and witnessed the release of the camp by American soldiers on April 11, 1945.
After his release, Moalic resumed his legal studies. He then joined Agence France-Presse (AFP) and became a senior reporter, covering top stories from Algeria to Vietnam and the French presidency.
In an interview with AFP this year, in celebration of the 80th anniversary of Buchenwald’s liberation, he spoke about his final months of confinement.
Approximately 56,000 Jews, Roman and Soviet prisoners died in camps outside the German town of Weimar between 1937 and 1945.
“On April 11th, there was a lot of excitement in the camp,” recalls Moalic.
The prisoners didn’t know if they would be released or massacred.
“SS began emptying camps by block, and each group was sent to Weimar station, where a dirty wagon was waiting.”
The rest of the prisoners were preparing for a possible battle.
“Then all of a sudden the American troops arrived,” he said.
“The SS didn’t engage in combat. They liked to bring hell out of it,” he said. “A few minutes later, we were outside.”
In an account issued by AFP in 1985, he recalled “the speed of the prisoner’s skin, the reflexes of the concentration camps, as if all we wanted was to escape nightmares very quickly.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published by Syndicate Feed.)
