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The Ravensbrück Memorial mourns the loss of Marie Vaislic, who passed away in Toulouse on 1 May 2025 at the age of 94. As a survivor of the Ravensbrück and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps, she was active in France and Europe as a speaker and witness who campaigned for remembrance, education and humanity throughout her life.

Marie Vaislic, née Rafalovitch, was born in Toulouse in 1930. Her parents were Jewish immigrants from Poland who settled in France after a failed emigration to the British Mandate of Palestine.

On 25 July 1944, just three weeks before the liberation of Toulouse, the 14-year-old was arrested in the driveway of her home by a French gendarme and the Gestapo. Neighbours had denounced her.

Together with other arrested Jewish families, she was taken to the Drancy internment camp and deported from there to Germany on a deportation train on 30 July 1944. The transport reached the Ravensbrück concentration camp on 9 August 1944. 

In spring 1945, Ravensbrück was evacuated by the SS as the Red Army advanced. Marie was transferred to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. She survived there in catastrophic conditions until she was liberated by British troops on 15 April 1945. Looking back, she said: ‘When I arrived in Bergen-Belsen, Ravensbrück seemed like a kind of paradise to me.’

In 1951, Marie married Shoah survivor Jean Vaislic, also from Poland, who had survived the Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald concentration camps. They started a family together.

In old age, Marie Vaislic found the strength and courage to tell her story publicly. Her autobiographical book Il n'y aura bientôt plus personne (Grasset, 2024), which was written in collaboration with the journalist Marion Cocquet, is an impressive testimony and an appeal not to allow the crimes of National Socialism to be forgotten.

The Ravensbrück Memorial had invited Marie Vaislic to the celebrations to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation. Her sudden death fills us with sadness - and at the same time with deep respect for her courage and humanity. 

At this difficult time, our thoughts are with her family, especially her son Claude Vaislic, and all her relatives.