Hélène K. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Hélène K., who was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1919, the youngest of six children. She recounts her family's move to Brussels in 1923; her happy childhood; their assimilated lifestyle; working in her father's business from age thirteen; one brother's emigration to Lyon; becoming more religious after marriage to an orthodox man in 1937; German invasion in May 1940; fleeing with her family to Paris, then Buzet; one brother fleeing to England; returning to Brussels a year later; anti-Jewish restrictions; obtaining false papers; she and her husband hiding with a family in Waterloo; her parents' deportation; arrest when visiting relatives in Brussels in November 1942; imprisonment in Avenue Louise; her husband joining her; deportation to Malines; arrival of two brothers and their wives; her husband establishing a tailoring workshop at the kommandant's request; her privileged position there; receiving food packages from the family that had hidden her; sharing them with others; frequent deportation trains that included her brothers and their wives; abandonment by the Germans in September 1944; returning to Brussels; friends returning many of their possessions; retrieving her brother's daughter from hiding; reunion with two brothers who had not been deported; learning of the killing camps and that her remaining family did not survive; and her son's birth in November 1945. Ms. K. discusses hierarchies in Malines; reporting those who had denounced her brother; her and her husband's illnesses and nightmares resulting from their experiences; his death in the 1970s; sharing her story with her son; the importance of being with her husband to her survival; and losing any belief in God due to her experiences.

8 videocassettes