- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Henri D., who was born in Ploiești, Romania, in 1910, the youngest of six children. He recounts his close relationship with his grandfather; his father's leadership role in the Jewish community; his grandfather's death in 1918; receiving his grandfather's teffilin at his bar mitzvah; attending a Romanian school; a beating from the principal because he was Jewish; leaving school, vowing never to return; being sent to live with an aunt in Paris; attending the Sorbonne; working as a journalist and novelist; the death of his fiancée; attending the Max Reinhardt-Seminar in Vienna in 1932; returning to Paris due to increasing antisemitism in Vienna; working as a filmmaker; identifying German enemy aliens for the Organisation civile et militaire (O.C.M.); German invasion; fleeing to Vannes; joining the Resistance through his O.C.M. contacts; infiltrating German headquarters posing as a non-Jewish interpreter and black marketeer; conveying names of collaborators and other information to the Resistance; arranging a liaison with a prostitute with venereal disease for a suspicious German officer, who returned to Germany after he became ill; receiving Allied airdropped arms in Sarthe; his arrest for black market activities; release; convincing German officers to release several Jewish prisoners; assisting with efforts to smuggle Jews to unoccupied France; arrest and interrogation by the Gestapo; the Resistance arranging his escape; being smuggled to Switzerland via Annecy; traveling to Geneva, Lausanne, and Bern; debriefing by Allen Dulles; learning of German intentions to assassinate him; brief imprisonment in Lausanne for his own safety; traveling to England; being sent to Qābis, Tunisia, then Morocco; arriving in Lyon after D-Day; serving in Grenoble; interrogating prisoners and locating collaborators in Paris; entering Buchenwald immediately after its liberation; smuggling arms to Israel; returning to France via Marseille; encountering antisemitism in the French military, leading to his decision to emigrate to Israel; and working in theater and film. Mr. D. notes a Jewish woman he had smuggled to Lyon locating him in the 1980s to thank him. His wife joins him at the end of the testimony.
- Author/Creator
- D., Henri, 1910-
- Published
- Ramat Aviv, Israel : Beth Hatefutsoth, Nahum Goldman Museum of the Jewish Diaspora, 1986 and 1987
- Interview Date
- December 12, December 15, December 24, 1986, and January 27, February 26, March 17, and March 26, 1987.
- Locale
- France
Romania
Ploiești (Romania)
Paris (France)
Vienna (Austria)
Vannes (France)
Sarthe (France)
Lyon (France)
Annecy (France)
Geneva (Switzerland)
Bern (Switzerland)
Lausanne (Switzerland)
England
Qābis (Tunisia)
Morocco
Grenoble (France)
Marseille (France)
- Cite As
- Henri D. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-1829). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Shushan, Tamar, interviewer.
Rozner, Raphael, interviewer.
- Notes
-
This testimony is in French.
Related publication: Dorou, Henry. Hayiti meragel Yehudi. Tel Aviv: Dalyah, 1950.
