Jannushka J. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Jannushka J., who was born in Paris, France in 1933. She recounts her parents' eastern European backgrounds; their secularism (she did not realize she was Jewish); German invasion; fleeing with her mother and brother to Pithiviers; returning to Paris; anti-Jewish harassment at school; being sent to Drancy; their escape; assimilating Nazi propaganda thus believing Jews were ugly and usurious; her parents placing her and her brother with the Resistance; being hidden outside Paris; living with a woman who treated them cruelly; converting to Catholicism; carrying messages for the Resistance; having crushes on Resistance men, many of whom were shot; reunion with their parents two months after war's end; not recognizing them; her parents emotional devastation upon learning their entire families had been murdered; remaining Catholic; never speaking about the war years; her father beating her; leaving home; traveling all over the world; living in Israel for a year; emigration to Canada in 1967; reconnecting to Judaism; marriage; raising her children as Jews; and a troubled relationship with her brother (he remained in France). Ms. J. shows photographs.

2 videocassettes