Odette H. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Odette H., who was born in Thessalonikē, Greece in 1927, one of three children. She recounts her family's emigration to Brussels in 1930; attending school; German invasion; fleeing to Paris, then Toulouse; attending school; her brother fleeing to Spain, and ultimately to Israel; returning to Brussels; anti-Jewish restrictions; going into hiding with her family in November 1942; obtaining false papers; arrest in 1944; incarceration in Avenue Louise; transfer to Malines; deportation to Auschwitz; remaining with her mother and sister; hospitalization; avoiding selection with assistance from her mother and sister; working as a translator; their transfer to Wilischtal; slave labor in a munitions factory; transfer to Theresienstadt; receiving Red Cross packages; liberation by Soviet troops; United States troops moving them to Sokolov, then the Bamberg displaced persons camp; satisfaction upon denouncing SS soldiers to the authorities; traveling to Liège; returning home; reunion with her brother-in-law, father, and grandparents; and marriage. Ms. H. discusses her terror caused by the rats in Auschwitz; her stronger faith in God due to her experiences; a 1950 visit to Israel; not sharing her experiences; and disliking films about the Holocaust since they cannot convey the true horror.
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
- H., Odette, -- 1927-
Corporate Bodies
- International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Theresienstadt (Concentration camp)
- Malines (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, German.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Women.
- Survivor-child relations.
- Postwar experiences.
- Mutual aid.
- Hospitals in concentration camps.
- False papers.
- Hiding.
- Child survivors.
- Refugee camps.
- Revenge.
- Faith.
- Concentration camp inmates -- Family relationships.
- Sisters.
- Mothers and daughters.
- Forced labor.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
Places
- Bamberg (Germany : Refugee camp)
- Liège (Belgium)
- Wilischtal (Germany : Concentration camp)
- Toulouse (France)
- Sokolov (Slovakia)
- Brussels (Belgium)
- Paris (France)
- Greece.
- Thessalonikē (Greece)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat