Robert M. Finaly lit one of six torches at the State Opening Ceremony of Holocaust Remembrance Day at Yad Vashem in 2005.
Born in 1941 in Grenoble, France. In March 1944 his parents were deported to Auschwitz, and Robert and his younger brother Gad (Gerald) were placed in the city’s Catholic children’s home. The manager of the institution cared for them but refused to return them to their family after the war, instead baptizing them to Christianity. After a five-year legal battle by the boys’ aunts — during which they were hidden in various Catholic institutions in Italy and Spain — the boys were returned to their families, and emigrated to Israel to live with their aunt. Today, Robert has 2 sons and a grandson.