Marek Halter

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Marek Halter
École nationale des beaux-arts
Years active1950s– present
Notable worksThe Book of Abraham (1986)

Marek Halter (born 27 January 1936) is a Polish-born French writer, artist, and

The Righteous
, released in 1994.

Early life and education

1991

Halter is Jewish, and was born in

Roman Catholics helped his family escape from the Warsaw Ghetto. He and his parents fled to the Soviet Union[2] spending the remainder of the war in Ukraine and Uzbekistan,[4] where he learned to speak the Uzbek language.[3]

In 1945, as a member of Uzbekistan's "Young Pioneers", Marek was selected to go to Moscow to present flowers to Joseph Stalin.[5] In 1946 the family returned to Poland, but, experiencing a great deal of antisemitism,[3] they emigrated to France, taking up residence in Paris in 1950.[4]

Halter studied

École nationale des beaux-arts to study painting.[3]

Career

Embarking upon a career in painting,[4] his first international exhibition was in 1955 in Buenos Aires, and he remained in that city for two years, returning to France in 1957, where he engaged in political journalism and advocacy.[5] He learnt Spanish while in Argentina.[3]

Writing

In 1968, he founded together with his wife, Clara Halter, the magazine Élements, which published works by Israeli,

Palestinian, and other Arab writers.[citation needed
]

His first book was Le Fou et les Rois (The Jester and the Kings),[4] an autobiography published in 1976.

His novels include The Messiah; The Mysteries of Jerusalem; The Book of Abraham (1986) and its sequel, The Children of Abraham (1990); The Wind of the Khazars (2003) — a piece of historical fiction about the Khazars, a nomadic kingdom of Turkic people in the Caucasus who converted to Judaism;[citation needed] Sarah (2004), a bestseller which was adapted into a TV series;[6] Zipporah (2005); Lilah (2006); and Mary of Nazareth (2008).[citation needed]

His historical novels have been translated into English, Polish,

Hebrew, and many other languages.[7][8][9]

Many of his books focus on the theme of memory, including that of his own family, the history of the

Jewish people, and specifically the Holocaust.[2]

Film

Halter has directed a film,

Berlin Film Festival in February 1995.[2]

He also directed an episode of the TV series La case du siècle in 2012.[11]

Activism and other activities

In 1967, Halter founded a committee for a negotiated peace agreement between Palestinians and Israelis, playing a significant role in arranging the first official meetings between the two groups.[4][3] He held several meetings with Yasser Arafat.[3]

Halter organised campaigns in Paris for

Soviet invasion of the country
. Halter co-founded the Jewish Culture Festival in Paris.[6]

In 1991 Halter founded the French College in Moscow (Collèges Universitaires Français), of which he is still president as of 2023.[12]

Recognition and awards

In 1954, he received the Deauville international prize, and was also awarded a prize at the Biennale d'Ancone.[citation needed]

The Book of Abraham (1986) won the Prix Maison de la Presse[6] and the Prix du Livre Inter.[4]

Le Fou et les Rois (The Jester and the Kings) was awarded the Prix Aujourd'hui in 1976.[4]

Personal life

Halter married Clara Halter.[2]

In 1990 he travelled to Poland for the first time in 40 years. There, he met another man called Marek Halter, a Catholic engineer. This man reported that he had been punished each time the French Halter's anti-Soviet activism had been mentioned in the media, and only discovered the reason years later, when he read an article in an official newspaper about Marek Halter, "the

Zionist enemy".[3]

In 2007, French magazines

Le Nouvel Observateur accused Halter of lying about several parts of his life.[13][14]

In February 2021, he was assaulted by intruders at his home in

anti-Semitic or racist words".[15]

Selected works

Halter's non-fiction works include:

  • The Jester And the Kings: a Political Biography (1989)
  • Stories of Deliverance: Speaking with Men And Women Who Rescued Jews from the
    Holocaust
     (1998)

Footnotes

  1. Hebrew.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b c "Halter, Marek 1936–". Encyclopedia.com. 27 January 1936. Retrieved 2 August 2023.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Riding, Alan (4 January 1995). "Marek Halter's Search for the 'Righteous' of Nazi Europe". CPCW. Retrieved 2 August 2023.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Bernstein, Richard (27 December 1990). "A French writer meets his Polish 'Secret Sharer'". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 August 2023.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h "Marek Halter". Penguin Random House.
  5. ^ a b Leon, Masha (29 September 2007). "Of Sugihara and Hiroshima". forward.com. Archived from the original on 29 September 2007. Retrieved 2 August 2023.
  6. ^ a b c "Marek Halter". PangoBooks. Retrieved 2 August 2023.
  7. ^ English, Spanish, German, Italian, Polish, Japanese, Dutch, Macedonian, Serbian, Turkish, Danish, Russian, Catalan, Czech, Hebrew, Romanian, Swedish, Modern Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Korean, Portuguese and Slovenian, according to his Worldcat author listing
  8. ISBN 9780815630890
  9. ISBN 9781933633510
  10. IMDb Edit this at Wikidata
  11. IMDb
  12. ^ "L'équipe du Collège Universitaire Français de Moscou". Collège Universitaire Français de Moscou. Retrieved 2 August 2023.
  13. ^ "L'homme qui a tout vécu..." Le Point (in French). 28 April 2005. Archived from the original on 8 September 2018.
  14. ^ Leménager, Par Grégoire (15 October 2008). "Les mensonges de Marek Halter". Bibliobs (in French). Retrieved 2 August 2023.
  15. ^ Lempkowicz, Yossi (14 February 2021). "French Jewish writer Marek Halter assaulted at his Paris home". EJP. Retrieved 2 August 2023.

Further reading

External links

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