Raymond H. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Raymond H., who was born in Strasbourg, France in 1919. He recounts the death of his older sister when he was one; the birth of another sister in 1922; his father's shoe business; attending religious and public schools; his bar mitzvah; apprenticing as a shoemaker in 1936; joining his father's business in 1937; orders to evacuate Strasbourg in 1938; moving to their summer home in Gérardmer with his parents, grandparents, and sister; his grandmother's death; he and his father selling shoes to local shops; German invasion on May 10, 1940 when he and his father were in Orléans; returning home; military draft; training in Le Barcarès, then in Pia; learning his family had moved to Montpellier; his grandfather's death; celebrating Jewish holidays with his family; demobilization in February 1941; attending classes on Judaism; a six-month internship in Nîmes to learn to make the soles of shoes; round-ups of non-French Jews in summer 1942; providing support to them in Agde, including the creation of false papers and aid in hiding; fleeing with his family to Perpignan when Germany entered southern France; returning to Montpellier, then Nîmes; obligatory marking of their identity cards as Jews; traveling to Italian-occupied Nice to help Jews in hiding and obtain matzahs for the Montpellier community; returning to Nice; working in a shoe factory; joining a Zionist group; helping coordinate cooperation among the French and Italian officials and the Jewish community to save Jews; German occupation in September; continuing Resistance activities to help Jews; traveling to Monte-Carlo to obtain funds; an assignment in Marseille; visiting his parents who were hiding in Aix-les-Bains; leaving his factory job in December 1943 to devote more time to Resistance activities; assistance from a local priest; members of his group killing those who denounced Jews; visiting his sister in Vichy; his uncle's arrest in spring 1944; his parents arranging to be smuggled to Switzerland; struggling to support many Jews in hiding; liberation; learning of extermination camps from returning Jews; and reunion with his sister and parents. Mr. H. names many with whom he was involved and shows photographs and documents.

10 videocassettes