Holocaust survivor Pisar dead at 86: Jewish group
July 28, 2015 22:54
American lawyer and writer Samuel Pisar, one of the youngest Holocaust survivors and former advisor to US President John F Kennedy, has died in New York aged 86.
Tributes poured in from world leaders on news of his death on Monday.
US Vice President Joe Biden called him a "courageous and remarkable man" who overcame a childhood lost to the Holocaust to become a trusted friend and advisor to presidents.
France's President Francois Hollande also paid tribute to Pisar, who was deported at the age of 13 to Majdanek, then Auschwitz and Dachau, where he was freed at 16.
"To ensure that the blood spilled became, in his words 'blood of hope', Samuel Pisar dedicated his life to the pressing task of passing down what he had experienced," said Hollande.
Pisar was "one of the rare very well-known survivors, along with Elie Wiesel and Simone Veil," said French Jewish community leader Roger Cukierman, who said he had lost "a friend."
After the war, Pisar became a celebrated academic and international lawyer and in the 1960s served as a trade advisor to Kennedy.
He was a friend to French presidents Francois Mitterrand and Valery Giscard d'Estaing. His stepson is US Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
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