Rudy R. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Rudy R., who was born in Charleroi, Belgium in 1930. Mr. R. describes not knowing he was Jewish until 1935; his parents' marital problems, many due to gambling; moving to Namur, then Brussels; his parents placing him and his sister in a Protestant orphanage, where they were later converted; German invasion in May 1940; returning home when his father's black marketeering could support them; anti-Jewish laws; harassment by other children; his mother's friendship with an SS officer; plastic surgery to minimize his "Jewish" ears; being hidden with his sister by friends in Werpin; visiting his father in jail; his father's release; hiding with his sister and father in Brussels, then with his mother in another household; going outside once in three years; liberation by British troops; being traumatized by antisemitic epithets immediately after liberation; emigrating to the United States; remaining Protestant; enlisting in the United States military during the Korean War; and disgust at antisemitism since he did not consider himself Jewish. Mr. R. discusses his struggle and coming to terms with his Jewish identity and an emotional visit to Israel in 1978. He shows photographs of relatives who were killed in the Holocaust.

2 videocassettes