- Summary
- Videotape testimony of David M., who was born in Oberhausen, Germany in 1922. He recounts moving to Charleroi, Belgium, then Brussels; attending public school; his father's support of trade unions; his participation in a leftist group; disbelief in German refugees' stories of concentration camps; German invasion; briefly fleeing to Abbeville, France; returning to Brussels; involvement in a Resistance group; arrest; incarceration in Saint-Gilles; interrogations; transfer to Malines; meeting his father there; not escaping due to his promise to escape with his father; deportation to Auschwitz; selection as a tailor; learning his father had perished in Birkenau; a doctor refusing his request to stay in the infirmary (this saved his life); transfer to Warsaw to demolish the ghetto; working as a tailor; evacuation to Dachau eleven months later in August 1944; and transfer to Waldlager V. Mr. M. recalls returning to Brussels; his family's disinterest in his experience; learning he had lost vision in one eye; marriage in 1947; and frequently talking about the war years with fellow deportees. He discusses concentration camp life: intergroup relations, organization, absolute arbitrariness, and contrast with normality. Mr. M. notes his dismay that his expectation that "things" would be better, did not occur.
- Author/Creator
- M., David, 1922-
- Published
- Brussels, Belgium : Fondation Auschwitz, 1992
- Interview Date
- December 9, 1992.
- Locale
- Belgium
Germany
Oberhausen (Düsseldorf, Germany)
Charleroi (Belgium)
Brussels (Belgium)
Abbeville (France)
- Cite As
- David M. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2982). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Chaumont, Jean-Michel, interviewer.
Paulus, Claire, interviewer.
- Notes
-
This testimony is in French