Geoffrey D. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Geoffrey D., a Catholic, who was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1924, the younger of two sons. He recounts attending Catholic school; German invasion; fleeing briefly; his mother's involvement in the Resistance; he and his brother cutting German telephone cables; joining a resistance unit; his parents arranging for him and his brother to escape to England in 1943; their arrest; incarceration in Fresnes; separation from his brother; transfer to Aix-la-Chapelle /Aachen; learning their "smuggler" was a double-agent; solitary confinement for eight months; seeing his brother during air raid evacuations; learning his mother had been arrested; transfer to Essen in April 1944, then to Esterwegen, Gross Strehlitz, and Laband; slave labor in a munitions factory, then the kitchen, where he obtained extra food; a death march with a brief stop in Ratibor; many deaths from starvation and exposure; arrival in Buchenwald; hospitalization; assistance from a French prisoner-doctor; being unconscious during liberation by United States troops; recovering in Weimar; repatriation; reunion with his father; informing him of his brother's death; refusing visitors for a year; feeling unsatisfied when attending the execution of the double agent who exposed him; and becoming a professional pilot. Mr. D. discusses his isolation and despondence in camps and prisons; not being able to learn the details of his mother's death in RavensbruĚck; and sharing his experiences for the first time in this testimony. He shows a photograph.
Extent and Medium
3 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
- D., Geoffrey, -- 1924-
Corporate Bodies
- Buchenwald (Concentration camp)
- Centre peĚnitentiaire de Fresnes.
- Esterwegen (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Brothers.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Belgium.
- Forced labor.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, German.
- Faith.
- Concentration camp inmates.
- Concentration camps -- Sociological aspects.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Video tapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Belgian.
- Men.
- Postwar effects.
- Mutual aid.
- Postwar experiences.
- Death marches.
- Hospitals in concentration camps.
Places
- Weimar (Thuringia, Germany)
- Laband (Poland : Concentration camp)
- Belgium.
- Brussels (Belgium)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat