Odette S. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Odette S., who was born in France in 1925 to an affluent family. She recalls helping refugees from central Europe; the outbreak of war; the family's moves to Deauville, Dordogne, and Brive; participating in the scouts; moving to Larche in 1942, thinking it would be safer; three months in Italian-occupied Savoie; arrest with her parents in Larche in 1943; separation from her father (she learned later he was shot); transfer with her mother to Drancy via Pe?rigueux and Paris; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; digging ditches; her mother's death after six weeks; transfer to the Canada Kommando which provided her with extra food and clothing; watching people enter the gas chamber area; transfer to Zschopau; working in a munition factory; trying to sabotage the materials; organizing lectures among the inmates; escaping from a cattle car during evacuation; returning to Zschopau; being hidden by a French prisoner, then a German widow (Mrs. S. arranged her recognition by Yad Vashem); joining other deportees after liberation; traveling to Paris via Saint-Avold; and reunion with her uncle. Mrs. S. discusses friendship, the hierarchy and trying to create some normalcy in the camps, and overcoming her reluctance to have children.

3 videocassettes