Georges C. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Georges C., a non-Jew, who was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1909, an only child. He recounts attending school and becoming an accountant in Schaerbeek; marriage in 1934; working as an accountant; military draft eight months prior to German invasion; capture and immediate escape; forming a resistance unit with several others; observing round-ups of Jews; arrest in March 1942; imprisonment in St. Gilles; deportation eight months later to Bochum; forced factory labor; prisoners organizing cultural activities; transfer to Hameln; helping a priest organize clandestine masses despite his own atheism; transfer to Gross Strehlitz; constructing barracks and the kitchen (they built in a method to clandestinely obtain potatoes from storage); sabotaging the work when he could; giving his cigarette rations to a friend; slave labor in an armaments factory; conflicts with an English POW; transfer to Laband; a death march to Buchenwald; slave labor clearing bombing rubble; contracting dysentery; a French doctor saving him from selection; a death march and train transport to Theresienstadt; liberation by Soviet troops; hospitalization; repatriation; reunion with his wife; and his son's birth. Mr. C. discusses camp hierarchies and relationships between prisoner groups; dehumanization; sharing his experiences with his wife, but not his son; and obtaining benefits as a political prisoner.
Extent and Medium
9 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
- C., Georges, -- 1909-
Corporate Bodies
- Theresienstadt (Concentration camp) -- http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/no96065698
- Buchenwald (Concentration camp) -- http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n97036997
Subjects
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Belgium. -- http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh2008113865
- Concentration camp inmates. -- http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh96000020
- Forced labor. -- http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85050453
- Concentration camps -- Sociological aspects.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives. -- http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85061518
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, Belgian.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, German. -- http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85148474
- Escapes. -- http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85044783
- Video tapes. -- http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85143214
- Men. -- http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85083510
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Belgian. -- http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh2008113917
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects. -- http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85029590
- Concentration camp inmates -- Religious life.
- Sabotage. -- http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85116210
- Prisoners of war -- Germany. -- http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh2010107235
- Prisoners of war -- England.
- Death marches. -- http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh95006384
- Resistance.
- Mutual aid.
- Postwar experiences.
- Survivor-child relations.
Places
- Belgium. -- http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n80126041
- Brussels (Belgium) -- http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n79013830
- Schaerbeek (Belgium) -- http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n2010076773
- Laband (Poland : Concentration camp)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat