Claire G. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Claire G., who was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1923, one of four children. She recounts moving to Paris in 1925; her family's assimilated lifestyle; German invasion; anti-Jewish laws; hiding with friends after the July 1942 round-up; illegally entering the unoccupied zone with her cousin, using false papers and posing as Christians; benign conditions in Italian-occupied Nice; one brother's arrival (her parents and other brothers were arrested); German occupation; hiking to Italy; returning to Nice; denunciation and arrest; transport to Drancy, then Auschwitz/Birkenau; encountering her brother; she and a friend being assigned to the privileged Union Kommando, then the Canada Kommando due to his influence; learning her other brother had perished; losing her will to live and feeling she was becoming inhuman; her friend convincing her to go on; transfer to Bergen-Belsen in December 1944; volunteering with her cousin to transfer to a factory; the owner's efforts to save prisoners; a death march in March 1945; escaping with a friend; assistance from locals and other escapees; liberation by British troops; repatriation to Hotel Lutetia; marriage to a survivor in Antwerp; the births of three sons; and raising her younger brother and her nephew (her parents and one brother did not survive). Ms. G. discusses the reluctance of others to hear survivor experiences and their inability to understand them; continuing friendships with survivors; sharing her experiences with her children; and persistent painful memories.

3 videocassettes