Gisele W. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Gisele W., who was born in Leipzig, Germany in 1934, the youngest of three children. She recalls her family's orthodoxy; her brother and sister caring for her while her parents worked; avoiding deportation to Poland in 1938 (her parents were born there) with assistance from a non-Jewish friend; going to her grandmother's home on Kristallnacht (she later perished in Theresienstadt); her father's arrest when escaping to Belgium in January 1939; her mother joining him when he was ill; placement in a orphanage; learning her father had died; being smuggled to Antwerp with her siblings; reunion with her mother; attending school; German invasion in May 1940; placement on a deportation train to Germany in 1941; being offloaded with her family in Bilzen; attending Catholic school and wanting to convert; moving to Brussels; deportation of her brother and sister (she never saw them again); a Catholic neighbor helping her mother hide her; placement in an orphanage under a new name; correspondence with her neighbor (her mother had been deported); being moved by the underground to another orphanage in Sugny; liberation by United States troops; placement in an orphanage near Brussels; reunion with her mother; emigration to join an aunt in the United States in December 1947; her mother joining her in 1950; marriage; and the births of two children. Ms. W. discusses losing her family and sense of identity; missing her education; pervasive, painful memories; not sharing her experiences except with a friend from the orphanage; recently discussing them with her daughter; her mother's death at age sixty-nine, a "broken woman," due to the loss of her children; visiting Germany and Belgium in 1979; and attending survivor gatherings.

2 videocassettes