- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Randolph J., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1913. He recalls his family's affluence; strong patriotism and food shortages during World War I; being taught Germany had won; his bar mitzvah; attending public school and gymnasium; cordial relations with non-Jews; gradual impoverishment as antisemitism increased in the 1930s; one sister's emigration to the United States; meeting his future wife; attending university in 1931; violent harassment; believing Hitler was a temporary phenomenon; traveling to Zurich in 1933 to continue his education, then to Paris via Geneva, Lyon, and Dijon; support from the Joint; reunion with his future wife; attending his mother's funeral in 1934; encountering Jews who still believed it was safe in Germany; earning a degree in economics; working as a journalist; applying for French citizenship in 1938; war's outbreak in 1939; forced relocation as an enemy alien; volunteering for the French military; serving in Orleans and Brittany; German invasion; smuggling to the unoccupied zone with a friend; and assistance from French farmers.
Mr. J. recounts demobilization; reunion with his wife in Toulouse; moving to Mane; French non-Jews hiding them; support from the World Jewish Congress; living under benign Italian occupation in Marseille; returning to Mane when it became dangerous; illegally entering Spain in December 1942; briefly staying in Sort; incarceration in Lérida, Zaragoza, and Miranda de Ebro; release because he declared himself British; joining his wife in Madrid; obtaining exit visas; his wife's departure to join her parents in England; British assistance traveling to Lisbon, then Poole; reunion with his wife in Oxford; enlisting in the British military; serving as an interpreter in Berlin and Szczecin in 1946; and discharge. Mr. J. discusses shock that Jews were vouching for Nazis at war crime trials; his career in journalism, earning a PhD at age seventy-five; and his wife's autobiographical book.
- Author/Creator
- J., Randolph, 1913-
- Published
- London, England : British Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1992 and 1993
- Interview Date
- June 4, 1992 and October 14, 1993.
- Locale
- Berlin (Germany)
Germany
Dijon (France)
Paris (France)
Zurich (Switzerland)
Geneva (Switzerland)
Lyon (France)
Brittany (France)
Orléans (France)
Toulouse (France)
Mane (France)
Marseille (France)
Sort (Spain)
Lérida (Spain)
Zaragoza (Spain)
Madrid (Spain)
Poole (Dorset, England)
Oxford (England)
Szczecin (Poland)
- Cite As
- Randolph J. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2138). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Perry, Elliot, interviewer.
- Notes
-
Related publication: Double-decker / Eva Jones. -- London : Bachman & Turner, c1978.
