- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Violette J., who was born in 1925. She remembers speaking Hungarian at home in Le Havre; violin lessons; her father's draft after the outbreak of war; fleeing to Brittany with her mother in June 1940 with her mother; returning to Le Havre a month later; her father's return; their move to Paris in 1942; obtaining false papers; living with her uncle in Lille; their denouncement and arrest; transfer to Brussels, then Malines; deportation to Auschwitz; separation from her parents (she never saw them again); several work assignments; brief hospitalization; auditioning for the women's orchestra; difficult relations with non-Jewish musicians and close bonds among the Jews; the leadership of Alma Rosé and Fania Fénelon; playing during roll calls; performing for the inmates on Sundays; transfer of the Jewish orchestra members to Bergen-Belsen in November 1944; becoming a kapo; liberation by British troops; and hospitalization. Mrs. J. recounts her wish to kill the person who denounced her family regardless of the consequences; friends asking her not to recount her experiences; gradually sharing her experiences with her children; and her disagreement with the perspective of Fénelon's book.
- Author/Creator
- J., Violette, 1925-
- Published
- Paris, France : Témoignages pour mémoire, 1992
- Interview Date
- February 5, 1992.
- Locale
- Le Havre (France)
Brittany (France)
Paris (France)
Lille (France)
Brussels (Belgium)
- Cite As
- Violette J. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2157). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Wieviorka, Annette, interviewer.
Waintrater, Régine, interviewer.
Decrop, Geneviève, interviewer.
- Notes
-
This testimony is in French.
Related publication: Sursis pour l'orchestre / Fania Fénelon ; témoignage recueilli par Marcelle Routier. -- Paris : Stock,c1976.
