Odette J. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Odette J., who was born to Polish immigrants in Paris, France in 1923, the middle of three children. She recalls her close and happy family; centering their life on the Bund; attending Bund youth group (S.K.I.F.) camps and gatherings, including one in Brighton, England; aiding Polish refugees in La Rochelle; returning to Paris with her family in 1940; losing her citizenship in 1941; hiding with a non-Jewish neighbor during the July 1942 round-up, later with another family; moving to the unoccupied zone with Bund help; living with her brother in Lyon, Dax, Pau, Bordeaux, Salies de Be?arn and Pujaut; assistance from many non-Jews; reunion with her mother and sister in Pau (her father remained in Paris); living with a Bund family in Lyon; obtaining false papers; traveling to Paris to help families in hiding; accompanying Jewish children to Annemasse to be smuggled into Switzerland; bringing her father to Lyon; moving to Grenoble; making false papers; staying in Toulouse; sending her brother to Switzerland; visiting her future husband in the Arde?che; their Maquis activities; she and her sister refusing to participate in armed resistance in Villeurbanne (they were not trained or adequately armed); liberation in Lyon; returning to Paris; reunion with her family; their adopting a baby whose mother had been killed; and marriage in June 1946. Mrs. J. attributes her rescue activities to her family, socialist, and Jewish values. She notes her continuing efforts to speak Yiddish.

3 videocassettes