GRAY, MARTIN

GRAY, MARTIN (1925– ), writer. As a Polish Jew from Warsaw, Gray was interned in the Warsaw ghetto and deported to the Treblinka extermination camp, from which he managed to escape, but left behind his entire family, of which he was the sole survivor. After his escape, he joined up with the Soviet Army advancing west towards Germany. After the war he settled in the United States, then in France where he published the bestselling Au nom de tous les miens (1971, written   in collaboration with Max Gallo), which was adapted for the screen by Robert Enrico in 1983. Though some parts of the story may have been embellished and cannot therefore be considered historical documentation, Gray remains a valuable witness to the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto and the extermination process, and the publication of the book marked a crucial point in the development of Holocaust awareness in France, the specificity of the Jewish Holocaust having long been ignored in France because of the emphasis placed on the deportations of Resistance fighters. (Dror Franck Sullaper (2nd ed.)