Michel L. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Michel L., who was born in Skierniewice, Poland in 1922, one of five children. He recounts his family's emigration to Metz in 1923; their return to Poland in 1936; moving back to France; attending a Jewish school; living among his extended family; his father's death; leaving school for a tailor's apprenticeship; German invasion; forced relocation with his extended family to Angoule?me; denunciation and arrest in 1942; incarceration near Poitiers; transfer to Drancy; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau in August; slave labor digging canals and moving corpses; volunteering to work as a tailor; improved conditions; reunion with Serge, a childhood friend; their transfer to Warsaw; assisting hidden ghetto survivors; public executions; assignment to the laundry; he and his friends exchanging goods for food with Polish civilians; a death march in August 1944 to ?owicz and Kutno, then train transport to Dachau; transfer to a sub-camp; train evacuation in April 1945; escaping with Serge during Allied bombings; receiving food from army deserters; liberation by United States troops; repatriation via Hotel Lutetia in Paris; traveling to Angoule?me, then Metz; learning his mother and siblings had been deported and killed; living in Paris; marriage to a survivor; his son's birth; learning twenty years later his youngest brother had survived in hiding; and their reunion. Mr. L. discusses not sharing his experiences with his son; nightmares and his loss of faith; and recently visiting Auschwitz with Serge. He shows photographs.

3 videocassettes