The Presidium of the IAC
The members of the Presidium are elected by the General Assembly. The Presidium includes former detainees of the Auschwitz concentration camp as well as younger members who represent various Auschwitz foundations. The Presidium consists currently of five members.
- Marian Turski
President
Marian Turski, Warsaw
- Born in 1926.
- Jounalist.
- Member of the International Auschwitz Council.
- Vice-President of the Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw.
- He was deported the Ghetto of Łódź in 1942, 1944 he was transported to Auschwitz.
- He survived Auschwitz and the Death March in 1945 from Auschwitz to Buchenwald.
- Henri Goldberg
Vice-President
Henri Goldberg, Brussels
- Henri Goldberg has survived the Nazi occupation in Belgium as a “hidden Jewish child”.
- He lives in Brussels and works as an engineer.
- He is President of the “Fondation Auschwitz” (Auschwitz Foundation).
- Stanislaw Zalewski
Vice-President
Stanislaw Zalewski
- Born on October 1, 1925 in Sucha Wola.
- On September 13, 1943 he was arrested for his activity in the resistance.
- On October 5 he was deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
- Chairman of the Polish Association of Former Political Prisoners of Hitler's Prisons and Concentration Camps (Polski Zwiazek Bylych Wiezniów Politycznych Hitlerowskich Wiezien i Obozów Koncentracyjnych).
- Hannah M. Lessing
Vice-President
Hannah M. Lessing, Vienna
- Secretary General
- Member of the International Auschwitz Council
- National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism
- Fund for the Restoration of the Jewish Cemeteries in Austria
- Avi Rosental
Vice-President
Avi Rosental, Tel Aviv
- Director General Center Organizations of Holocaust Survivors in Israel
- Christoph Heubner
Executive Vice-President
Christoph Heubner, Berlin
- Born in 1949.
- Vice-Chairman of the Board of the Foundation for the International Youth Meeting Centre in Oswiecim/Auschwitz.
- In June 2004 the Polish Prime Minister Belka appointed him to the International Auschwitz Council, a body called on by the Polish government for consultations which is headed by Prof. Wladyslaw Bartoszewski.
- For many years Christoph Heubner has accompanied groups of young Volkswagen trainees as a coach and instructor during their seminars and maintenance works at the Auschwitz memorial site.
- Author of many poetry and prose publications.
- In 1998 decoration with the Member’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland.
- In 2003 decoration with the Order of the Federal Republic of Germany.
- In January 2005 decoration with the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland.
- Noach Flug
Honorary President
Noach Flug, Jerusalem Z"L
- Born in Lodz, Poland in 1925
- In 1939 he was forced to move with his family to the ghetto of Łódź; hard labour
- In August 1944 he was deported to Auschwitz, Gross-Rosen, Mauthausen and Ebensee. Liberation in Ebensee by American units on 6 May 1945.
- After the war he finished secondary school in Łódź and studied economics in Łódź and Warsaw.
- In 1958: immigration to Israel together with his wife and two daughters.
- He worked as an economist and a diplomat in Zurich and Bonn, among other cities, before he retired in 1987.
- He is a member of the Board of Yad Vashem and AMCHA and General Secretary of the WJRO.
- Chairman of the Organization of Holocaust Survivors in Israel since 2003.
- President of the International Auschwitz Committee until 2011.
- Noach Flug died on August 11th, 2011 in Jerusalem.
- Julius Goldstein
Honorary President
Julius Goldstein, Berlin Z"L
- Born in 1914
- As a Jew and Communist he was expelled from Germany in 1933 and went to Spain, via Luxembourg, France and Palestine. As a member of the International Brigades he fought against the Franco fascism. After Franco’s victory he was interned in France. Under the German occupation he was extradited to the Nazis and deported to Auschwitz.
On 17 January 1945 he was evacuated from Auschwitz and sent on the “Death March” to Buchenwald. - After the war he was politically active in the Ruhr area.
- In 1951 he moved to the GDR where he worked until 1978 as a journalist and director of the radio station “Voice of the GDR”.
- In 1976 he became Vice-president of the IAC.
- In 1996 he was awarded the honorary title “Freeman of the Republic of Spain”.
- Honorary President of the IAC since 2003.
- In 2005 he was awarded the Order of the Federal Republic of Germany, First grade.
- He gave lectures to school classes, in youth centres and at various political events.
- He died on September 24th, 2007 in Berlin.
At the General Assembly of the IAC 2022 in Oswiecim newly elected members of the Presidium from the 2nd generation of families of Auschwitz survivors or from Auschwitz survivors as representatives of Auschwitz foundations proposed.
- Frédéric Crahay
Member
Frédéric Crahay, Brussels
- Direktor VZW Auschwitz in Gedachtenis - Stichting Auschwitz (ASBL Mémoire d'Auschwitz - Fondation Auschwitz)
- Marta Malá
Member
Marta Malá, Prague
- Foundation for Holocaust Victims
- Executive Director, Coordinator for RENOVATION Program
- Piotr Wiślicki
Member
Piotr Wiślicki, Warsaw
- Chairman of the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute
- Roman Kent Z"L
President
Roman Kent Z"L, New York
- Born in Lodz, Poland in 1925.
- After the invasion of Germany in Poland he was deported to the ghetto of Łódź, later to the concentration camps in Auschwitz, Merzbachtal, Dornau and Flossenbürg.
- In 1946 he was admitted to the USA on the basis of children’s quota in the framework of the US government’s “Displaced Persons Act”.
- Roman Kent lived with his family in New York as a businessman.
- He was Chairman of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Treasurer of the Jewish Claims Conference.
- Roman Kent died on May 21st, 2021 in New York.
- Kazimierz Albin Z"L
Vice-President
Kazimierz Albin Z"L, Warsaw
- Born in 1922.
- A Polish resistance fighter he was captured on 14 June 1940 and deported to Auschwitz with the first transport. In Auschwitz Albin was given No 118, his brother No. 116.
- In 1943 he successfully escaped from the camp and went underground. Under false identy he again joined the AJK resistance movement in Krakow.
- After the war he studied at the College of Technology and graduated as an engineer for aircraft construction.
- He was a member of the Board of TONO, the Polish Association for the Maintenance of the Auschwitz Memorial Site and lived in Warsaw.
- Kazimierz Albin died on July 22nd in Warsaw.
- Noah Klieger Z"L
Vice-President
Noah Klieger Z"L, Tel Aviv
- Born 1926 in Strasbourg
- In the mid-1930s the family emigrated to the seeming safety of Belgium.
- From 1941 he was active in a Jewish resistance group which enabled 300 Jewish children to flee to Switzerland.
- Arrested in 1942, he was deported via Mechelen detention and deportation camp to Auschwitz.
- In January 1945 forced to take part in the Death Marches. 1945 liberated at Ravensbrück concentration camp.
- Moved to Israel. He lived in Tel Aviv and was regarded as the doyen of Israeli sports journalism. As a witness of the times, he still participated in numerous conversations with young people in many European countries.
- Noah Klieger died on December 13, 2018
- Prof. Yefim G. Gologorskiy Z"L
Vice-President
Prof. Yefim G. Gologorskiy Z"L, Moscow
- Imprisoned as a child in the ghetto of Mogilev-Podolsky.
- Studied engineering science.
- President of the International Union of Public Associations of Jews – Former Prisoners of Fascism, in which former prisoners of the ghettos and concentration camps from Russia, the Ukraine, Belarus, Moldavia and Estonia are represented.
- Chairman of the Moscow Association of Jews – Former Prisoners of Ghettos and Concentration Camps.
- (appointed by the committee)
- Raphaël Esrail
Vice-President
Raphaël Esrail Z"L, Paris
- Born in 1925, he spent his childhood in Lyon.
- At the age of 11 Raphaël joined a Jewish boy scouts group. The idea of the scout movement had a formative influence on him and finally led him into the resistance movement.
- After the occupation of Lyon by the Germans Esrail specialized in the falsification of personal documents within the resistance movement.
- In 1944, at the age of 19, he was arrested and deported to Auschwitz.
- On 18 January 1945 he was sent on the “Death March”. He was liberated by the Americans in Dachau on 1 May 1945.
- Raphaël Esrail worked as an engineer. He is married with one daughter and he has got two grandchildren. Today he is General Secretary of the “Union des Déportés d'Auschwitz” (Association of Auschwitz Deportees) and an active member of the Foundation for the Remembrance of the Deportation and Shoa in Paris.
- Raphaël Esrail considers his cooperation with history teachers and young people in schools a task of particular importance.
- Raphaël Esrail died on January 22nd, 2022 in Lannion, France.
- Felix Kolmer
Vice-President
Prof. Felix Kolmer, Prague
- Born in Prague in 1922 and deported to Terezín at the age of 19.
- Detainee in Auschwitz and Friedland (branch camp of Gross-Rosen). Hard Labour. After his liberation he studied and became a professor of physics.
- Worldwide research and lectures (in acoustics);
- President of the Terezín Initiative, member of the Jewish Community in Prague;
- Continuous work for the compensation of hard labour survivors and camp detainees.
- Numerous lectures for school classes and groups of young people throughout Europe.
- Prof. Felix Kolmer died on August 5, 2022 in Prague