Andre T. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Andre T., a non-Jew, who was born in Belgium in 1920, the older of two children. He recounts his "bourgeois" background; attending university; military draft in 1939; postings in Liège, then Brussels; German invasion in May 1940; brief capture; returning to Brussels; attempting to escape to England via France; arrest in Port-Vendres; transfer to Peripignan; being tried for having improper documents; release and immediate re-arrest; transfer to Argelès; escape with two friends; traveling to Limoux; obtaining false papers; returning to Brussels via Sète and Lille; joining the underground; delivering weapons and false papers; fleeing to Paris; arrest; incarceration in Santé; transfer to St. Gilles; learning his parents had been imprisoned; negotiating their release; transfer to Cologne, Essen, Bochum, then Bonn; observing a Jewish prisoner, who was segregated; a sham trial; transfer to Engelstadt, then Kaishem in 1944; forced labor in a clothing workshop; sabotaging production; appointment as an interpreter; solitary confinement for assisting a fellow prisoner; prisoners sharing food; transfer to Dachau; receiving Red Cross parcels; liberation by United States troops; many deaths resulting from eating; returning to Brussels via Liège; and reunion with his family. Mr. T. discusses details of prison and camp life, particularly total humiliation; attributing his survival to help from others; and visiting Dachau with his son.
Extent and Medium
5 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
- T., Andre, -- 1919-
Corporate Bodies
- Dachau (Concentration camp)
- Santé (Prison : Paris, France)
- International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
Subjects
- Survivor-child relations.
- Postwar experiences.
- Video tapes.
- Men.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Belgian.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, Belgian.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Belgium.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, French.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- France.
- Escapes.
- Concentration camp inmates.
- Forced labor.
- Sabotage.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- False papers.
- Mutual aid.
Places
- Belgium.
- Perpignan (France)
- Port-Vendres (France)
- Liège (Belgium)
- Brussels (Belgium)
- Engelstadt (Germany)
- Sète (France)
- Limoux (France)
- Argelès (France)
- Paris (France)
- Lille (France)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat