Paris—based writer and politician Jorge Semprun, a Communist who survived the Nazi death camp in Buchenwald to become culture minister in his native Spain, has died. He was 87.
French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand said on Wednesday in a statement that with Semprun’s passing “we have lost not only an important writer but also a great witness of our times.”
Semprun was born in Madrid in 1923 but grew up in exile largely in France. A Communist activist, he was sent to Buchenwald, where he spent more than a year.
His first of more than a dozen books, “The Long Voyage” (1963) told the story of his deportation.
He was named Spain’s culture minister under Socialist Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, from 1988—1991.
