Jacques R. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Jacques R., who was born in 1922. He recounts his family's move to La Louvie?re, Belgium, then Brussels and Anderlecht; beatings at school because he was Jewish; violin lessons; participation in leftist organizations; German invasion; fleeing to France; returning to Belgium; involvement in the Resistance; the Bund placing him in hiding with non-Jews in Villers-la-Ville, using false papers; running away from his hiding place; joining his mother in Uccle; arrest with his uncle and cousin; interrogations; transfer to Malines; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; quarantine; slave labor in Jaworzno; building a camp there; obtaining extra food and avoiding selections by playing violin; a public hanging of escapees; the death march to Gross-Rosen; transfer to Hersbruck, Flossenbu?rg, and Dachau; receiving a Red Cross package; and liberation by United States troops. Mr. R. vividly describes camp life and the breakdown of "normal" human behavior; incidents of prisoners both helping and harming each other; and horrible nightmares in the first years after liberation.
Extent and Medium
5 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
- R., Jacques, -- 1922-
Corporate Bodies
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Gross-Rosen (Concentration camp)
- Jaworzno (Concentration camp)
- Dachau (Concentration camp)
- Flossenbürg (Concentration camp)
- Hersbruck (Concentration camp)
- Malines (Concentration camp)
- International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
- Allgemeyner Idisher arbayṭerbund in Liṭa, Poylen un Rusland.
Subjects
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Belgium.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Resistance.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Hiding.
- Mutual aid.
- Postwar effects.
- False papers.
- Men.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Death marches.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Nightmares.
- Forced labor.
Places
- La Louvière (Belgium)
- Anderlecht (Belgium)
- Brussels (Belgium)
- Villers-la-Ville (Belgium)
- Uccle (Belgium)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat