Charles V. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Charles V., who was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1913. He recalls feeling Belgian rather than Jewish; military service beginning in 1937; German invasion; capture; one year imprisonment as a Belgian POW; returning home; anti-Jewish restrictions; obtaining false papers; forced closing of the family business; hiding with his parents and sister; denunciation as a Jew in June 1944; imprisonment; transfer to Malines, then Auschwitz (his family remained hidden); slave labor; fierce struggles for food; his sense of complete isolation; willing himself to forget his past and family; a Belgian nurse saving his life; public executions; learning to play french horn in order to be in the orchestra for extra food and protection; playing eighteen hours daily; Romanies in the orchestra being killed when the Zigeunerlager (Gypsy Lager) was liquidated; the death march to Gross-Rosen, Buchenwald, and Ravensburg beginning in January 1945; disappearance of guards; assistance from French POWs; return to Brussels; and reunion with his family. Mr. V. discusses camp life, including intergroup relations; relief he was alone so he did not have to see relatives suffer; the pervasive presence of corpses in Gross-Rosen; refusal to eat mutton (it reminds him of the odor of Auschwitz); and many relatives killed during the Holocaust.
Extent and Medium
4 videocassettes
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
- V., Charles, -- 1913-
Corporate Bodies
- Gross-Rosen (Concentration camp)
- Buchenwald (Concentration camp)
- Malines (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Video tapes.
- Men.
- Holocaust survivors.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, Belgian.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Forced labor.
- Identification (Religion)
- Concentration camps -- Sociological aspects.
- Concentration camps -- Songs and music.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, Belgian.
- Death marches.
- Prisoners of war.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, Jewish.
- Hiding.
- False papers.
- Postwar experiences.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Postwar effects.
- Mutual aid.
Places
- Belgium.
- Ravensburg (Germany : Concentration camp)
- Brussels (Belgium)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat