Geoffrey H. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Professor Geoffrey H., a distinguished literary scholar and advisor to Holocaust testimony projects, who was born in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1929. He tells of assimilated relatives; curiosity about Nazi flags and parades; antisemitic restrictions; placement at age seven in a boy's home supported by the Rothschilds, where his divorced mother thought he would be safer; his mother's departure for America in late 1938; evacuation on a children's transport in March 1939; and arrival with nineteen other boys at the James Rothschild estate in Waddesdon, England. He speaks of his host's generosity; life in wartime England; education; reunion with his mother in the United States in 1945; attending Hunter College, Queens College, and Yale; visiting Frankfurt as a student in 1952; rekindling his Jewish identity while a United States soldier in Heidelberg in 1953; and his subsequent academic career. He discusses German reunification; emotional attachment to Israel; his sense of being a "perpetual refugee"; and integrating survivors into the Jewish community.
Extent and Medium
2 videocassettes (3/4" u-matic)
Conditions Governing Access
This testimony is open with permission.
Conditions Governing Reproduction
Copyright has been transferred to the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. Use of this testimony requires permission of the Fortunoff Video Archive.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- De Rothschild, J. A. -- (James Armand), -- 1878-1957.
- H., Geoffrey, -- 1929-2016.
Corporate Bodies
- Waddesdon (England)
Subjects
- Video tapes.
- Men.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Refugees, Jewish -- Great Britain.
- Jews -- Migrations.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Kindertransports (Rescue operations)
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Jews -- Rescue.
- Orphanages.
- Mothers and sons.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Draft -- United States.
Places
- Heidelberg (Germany)
- Germany -- History -- 1945-1955.
- Frankfurt am Main (Germany)
- Germany.
- England.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- ftamc