- Martin Gray (Holocaust survivor)
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Martin Gray, born as Mieczysław Grajewski (born 27 April 1922, Warsaw, Poland) is a Holocaust survivor and author.
In 1946 Gray emigrated to the United States, where his grandmother was living. Some 10 years after his arrival Gray had become a tradesman in replicas of [2] antiques, doing business in the U.S., Canada and Cuba.
He moved to the South of France in 1960, where he still lives.
Contents
Books
His first book, For those I loved, became a bestseller. Another 11 books would follow over the years. All of Gray’s books have been written in French. Several of them have been translated into English. Gray’s last book Au nom de tous les hommes (2005, In the name of all mankind) has not yet found an English translation.
Two of Gray’s books are autobiographies: the already mentioned For those I loved covers the period: 1922 (birth) - 1970, when Gray lost his wife and all four children in a forest fire. His second autobiography La vie renaitra de la nuit (Life arises out of night) covers the period 1970 – 1977, the year in which Gray found his second wife, Virginia. In this second autobiography Gray describes himself desperately looking for a way to live after the family disaster of 1970.
In 1979 the American photographer David Douglas Duncan wrote a book on Gray: The fragile miracle of Martin Gray.
Films
- Gray’s life has been put on film: For those I loved. The film was broadcast as a mini-series during the 80’s in Europe, starring Michael York and Brigitte Fossey.
- A second, shorter film was made by Frits Vrij, who tried to contact Gray for several years. The encounter between Gray and Frits Vrij resulted in a film: Seeking Martin Gray. The film was recently brought out on DVD.
Criticism by Gitta Sereny
Holocaust historian Gitta Sereny has dismissed Gray’s book as a forgery in a 1979 article in New Statesman magazine, writing that "Gray's For Those I Loved was the work of Max Gallo the ghostwriter, who also produced Papillon. During the research for a Sunday Times inquiry into Gray's work, M. Gallo informed me coolly that he ‘needed’ a long chapter on Treblinka because the book required something strong for pulling in readers. When I myself told Gray, the ‘author,’ that he had manifestly never been to, nor escaped from Treblinka, he finally asked, despairingly, ‘But does it matter? Wasn't the only thing that Treblinka did happen, that it should be written about, and that some Jews should be shown to have been heroic?’” [3]
References
- ^ Part of the text affixed on the base of the monument located Victor Allard street/Calevoet Station.
- ^ Martin Gray, Au nom de tous les miens, Paris, Laffont, 1971 ; rééd. Pocket, 1998, p. 327-329 et 332.
- ^ Sereny, Gitta. "The Men Who Whitewash Hitler", New Statesman, Vol. 98, No. 2537, November 2, 1979, pp. 670-73.
External links
Other death camps: Auschwitz-Birkenau · Bełżec · Chełmno · Jasenovac · Majdanek · Maly Trostenets · Sobibor Camp organizers Odilo Lotario Globocnik • Hermann Julius Höfle • Richard Wolfgang Thomalla • Erwin Hermann Lambert • Christian WirthCommandant Deputy commanders Heinrich Arthur Matthes • Karl Pötzinger • Theodor von EupenGas chamber executioners Fritz Schmidt • Gustav MünzbergerOther officers Max Biala • Paul Bredow • Herbert Floss • Erich Fritz Erhard Fuchs • Lorenz Hackenholt • Josef Hirtreiter • Otto Richard Horn • Kurt Küttner • Karl Emil Ludwig • Willy Mätzig • Willi Mentz • August Wilhelm Miete • Max Möller • Willi Post • Albert Franz Rum • Karl Schiffer • Otto Stadie • Ernst Stengelin • Franz SuchomelGuards Germans/Austrians:
Ukrainians: Ivan Demjanjuk • Feodor Fedorenko • Ivan Ivanovich Marchenko • Nikolay Yegorovich Shalayev • other Volksdeutsche and prisoners of war (90 to 120)
Latvians:Prominent victims Ernst Arndt • Yitzchok Breiter • Artur Gold • Ludwik Holcman • Janusz Korczak • Yechiel Lerer • Yitzchak Lowy • Simon Pullman • Natan Spigel • Lidia ZamenhofResistance and survivors Richard Glazar • Martin Gray • Sol Rosenberg • Jankiel WiernikNazi occupation and organizations Planning, methods,
documents and evidenceWar crimes investigations and trials Treblinka TrialsRelated articles Categories:- 1922 births
- Living people
- French-language writers
- Polish writers
- Treblinka extermination camp survivors
- Warsaw Ghetto inmates
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