Fernand E. Holocaust testimony (HVT-2988) interviewed by Yannis Thanassekos and Jean-Michel Chaumont

Videotape testimony of Fernand E., a non-Jew, who was born in Malines (Mechelen), Belgium in 1923. He describes fleeing to France at the German invasion; returning home three weeks later; involvement with the underground press; arrest; imprisonment in Antwerp, St. Gilles, and Bochum; forced labor in a munitions factory; sabotaging the work; a trial in Essen; being sentenced to forced labor; transfer to Esterwegen in May 1943; hospitalization; a doctor who saved his life; forced labor in Hamburg and Darmstadt; transfer to Natzweiler-Struthof; concealing the fact that several prisoners were Jews; transfer to Sachsenhausen, Allach, Asslar, and Schömberg; escaping with friends; receiving assistance from a German farmer; joining French troops for two months; and repatriation. Mr E. discusses ethnic and national group relations in the camps; details of camp life, including removing gold dental work from corpses; frequent prisoner conversations about food resulting from their starvation; testifying in a trial of Natzweiler administrators; participating in a Natzweiler survivor group; and the importance of maintaining democracy and the ideals of the homeland.