Fernand E. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Fernand E., a non-Jew, who was born in Malines (Mechelen), Belgium in 1923. He describes fleeing to France at the German invasion; returning home three weeks later; involvement with the underground press; arrest; imprisonment in Antwerp, St. Gilles, and Bochum; forced labor in a munitions factory; sabotaging the work; a trial in Essen; being sentenced to forced labor; transfer to Esterwegen in May 1943; hospitalization; a doctor who saved his life; forced labor in Hamburg and Darmstadt; transfer to Natzweiler-Struthof; concealing the fact that several prisoners were Jews; transfer to Sachsenhausen, Allach, Asslar, and Scho?mberg; escaping with friends; receiving assistance from a German farmer; joining French troops for two months; and repatriation. Mr E. discusses ethnic and national group relations in the camps; details of camp life, including removing gold dental work from corpses; frequent prisoner conversations about food resulting from their starvation; testifying in a trial of Natzweiler administrators; participating in a Natzweiler survivor group; and the importance of maintaining democracy and the ideals of the homeland.
Extent and Medium
3 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
- E., Fernand, -- 1923-
Corporate Bodies
- Esterwegen (Concentration camp)
- Sachsenhausen (Concentration camp)
- Struthof (Concentration camp)
- SchoĚmberg (Concentration camp : Germany)
Subjects
- Sabotage.
- Trials (Germany)
- Resistance.
- Hospitals in concentration camps.
- Mutual aid.
- Postwar experiences.
- Video tapes.
- Men.
- Concentration camps -- Sociological aspects.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Belgian.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Belgium.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, French.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, German.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, Belgian.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, Belgian.
- Forced labor.
- Escapes.
- War crime trials -- Germany
Places
- Belgium.
- France.
- Mechelen (Belgium)
- Darmstadt (Germany)
- Essen (Germany)
- Asslar (Germany : Concentration camp)
- Hamburg (Germany)
- Malines (Belgium)
- Allach (Germany : Concentration camp)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat