Janine K. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Janine K., who was born in 1921. She recalls living in Paris; her parents' divorce; living with her mother; Jewish holiday and Sabbath observances at her grandmother's; German occupation; fleeing to a village outside Paris; working as a nanny for a farmer (her parents had been deported separately and did not return); denunciation; imprisonment with criminals; transfer to Drancy; reunion with her brother; their deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; separation by gender; slave labor while freezing in winter and burning from the sun in summer; long appels; her belief that she would survive; social divisions by class and nationalities; "stealing" apples; transfer to Bergen-Belsen; living in tents; transfer to the French block; solidarity among French prisoners; singing the "Marseillaise" on July 14th; being beaten by a block leader; numerous daily deaths from typhus; contracting typhus and dysentery; liberation; recuperation in a British hospital; repatriation to France; reunion with her brother; and marriage in 1950. Mrs. K. notes her postwar nervous breakdown; difficulty discussing her experiences, even with her brother, husband, and children; frequent nightmares; and losing her belief in religion, although identifying as a Jew.
Extent and Medium
2 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
- K., Janine, -- 1921-
Corporate Bodies
- Drancy (Concentration camp)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Bergen-Belsen (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Forced labor.
- Brothers and sisters.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, German.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Women.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Survivor-child relations.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Concentration camps -- Sociological aspects.
- Nightmares.
- Concentration camps -- Songs and music.
- Mutual aid.
- Faith.
- Postwar effects.
- Postwar experiences.
Places
- Paris (France)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat