Elisabeth F. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Elisabeth F., a Catholic, who was born in Dorinne, Belgium in 1915. She recounts few memories of World War I; attending school in Natoye, Namur, and Brussels; marriage in 1936; her son's birth in 1937; her husband's military draft in 1939; fleeing with her parents and son to Murviel-lès-Béziers after German invasion; her husband's combat death; never attending mass again; living with her sister in Spontin; working for the Resistance through a former teacher; hiding and moving downed Allied pilots; imprisonment in St. Gilles for three weeks in November 1940; arrest with her former teacher in February 1943; incarceration in St. Gilles; never admitting to anything; her death sentence on May 5th; transfer to Aachen; celebrating Christmas; transfer to several places ending at Waldheim; sabotaging the forced factory labor; learning of the gassing and shooting of Jews; helping a Jewish woman; transfer to Cottbus, then Ravensbrück; loading bodies for the crematorium; talking and thinking about food all the time; transfer to Mauthausen, then Amstettin; liberation by the Red Cross in April; recovering in St. Gall; return to Belgium; reunion with her family; her son's difficulties; living in India; and speaking of her experiences with her camp friends.
Extent and Medium
2 videocassettes
Conditions Governing Access
This testimony is open with permission.
Conditions Governing Reproduction
Copyright has been transferred to the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. Use of this testimony requires permission of the Fortunoff Video Archive.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- F., Elisabeth, -- 1915-
Corporate Bodies
- Ravensbrück (Concentration camp)
- Mauthausen (Concentration camp)
- International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
Subjects
- Husband -- Death.
- Video tapes.
- World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, Belgian.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Belgium.
- Women.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Friendship.
- Forced labor.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, German.
- Faith.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Postwar experiences.
- Sabotage.
- Concentration camp inmates.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- False papers.
- Postwar effects.
- Mutual aid.
Places
- Namur (Belgium)
- Natoye (Belgium)
- Murviel-lès-Béziers (France)
- Brussels (Belgium)
- Dorinne (Belgium)
- Belgium.
- Waldheim (Germany : Concentration camp)
- Amstettin (Austria : Concentration camp)
- Cottbus (Germany : Concentration camp)
- Aachen (Germany)
- Spontin (Belgium)
- Aix-la-Chapelle (Germany)
- Saint Gall (Switzerland)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat