Denise L. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Denise L., who was born in France in 1916. She recounts her family's history; marriage in August 1938; moving to St. Honore? with her parents; her son's birth in June 1939; her husband being taken as a prisoner of war; assistance from French neighbors; her mother's death in 1943; hiding during round-ups with the non-Jewish wife of another POW; arrest with her father and son; internment in Nevers and Drancy in February 1944; her father's deportation to Auschwitz (she never saw him again); deportation with her son to Bergen-Belsen as a POW's wife; her son's illnesses; caring for the children in order to stay with her son (she believes he would have died otherwise); fear of losing her son; two weeks without food or water on an evacuation train; and liberation by Soviet troops. Mrs. L. recounts receiving packages in Tro?bitz from her husband; repatriation to Strasbourg, Ivry via Leipzig, and Speyer; reunion with her husband in Paris; returning to Belfort; and her second son's birth in June 1947. She tells of establishing a museum of the deportation in Besanc?on; reunions of Bergen-Belsen inmates; discussions with her sons concerning the war years; and continuing nightmares.
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
- L., Denise, -- 1916-
Corporate Bodies
- Bergen-Belsen (Concentration camp)
- Drancy (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Hiding.
- Postwar experiences.
- Postwar effects.
- Survivor-child relations.
- Women.
- Video tapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Fathers and daughters.
- Mothers and sons.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Nightmares.
- Holocaust survivors.
Places
- Leipzig (Germany)
- Speyer (Germany)
- Strasbourg (France)
- Besançon (France)
- Paris (France)
- Nevers (France)
- Ivry (France)
- Saint-Honoré (France)
- France.
- Belfort (France)
- Tröbitz (Germany)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat