Holocaust survivor and former JFK adviser dies

Samuel Pisar, a Holocaust survivor who went on to become a lawyer and writer, as well as an adviser to president John F. Kennedy, died Monday in New York at age 86, it was announced Tuesday.

A native of Poland, Pisar spent time in several Nazi concentration camps, before escaping during a death march at the end of World War II.

After the war he earned a doctorate in law from Harvard University. He also was awarded a doctorate from the Sorbonne in France.

Pisar was the founder of Yad Vashem France. He also wrote an award- winning memoir, Of Blood and Hope, about how he survived the Holocaust.

Pisar became a member of Kennedy’s economic and foreign policy task force in 1960, and also served as an adviser to the State Department.

Vice President Joe Biden said in a statement that Pisar’s “success as a lawyer and statesman were only surpassed by the courage he showed in speaking of his Holocaust experience. He confronted not only the brutality of his experience but the person he had to become to survive.”

Biden, who noted that Pisar was the stepfather of Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken, added that Pisar’s book should be “required reading. It stands as a strong reminder for every generation of our ongoing obligation to never forget.”

Secretary of State John Kerry in a statement called Pisar “a man of enormous resilience and inspiring courage.”

“We draw strength from the knowledge that the tradition of Samuel Pisar’s dedication to service and commitment to justice and truth is being carried on by his stepson every day of the year,” Kerry said. “From [ his] perilous beginning, Samuel went on to a highly successful career in law and public service... his memoir, Of Blood and Hope... will stand forever as testimony to humankind’s greatest confrontation with evil.

French 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.

Roger Cukierman, president of the French Jewish umbrella organization CRIF, in a statement issued Tuesday called Pisar “a wonderful man who was admired by all,” and a “friend.” ( JTA)