Michel V. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3006) interviewed by Elisabeth Inchusta and Frédéric Fichefet,
Videotape testimony of Michel V., a non-Jew, who was born in Ixelles, Belgium in 1916, one of three brothers. He recounts moving to Lier; encountering veterans of World War I; attending school; working in Anderlecht; marriage in 1936; his son's birth; serving in the military; an influx of Jewish refugees; becoming a policeman in 1939; German invasion in May 1940; arresting Communists, Rexists, and those identified as enemy aliens in Brussels; attempting to re-join his military regiment; Belgian capitulation to Germany; capture by the Germans in Antwerp; returning home; joining the underground; distributing anti-German leaflets; providing false papers to British soldiers; his wife's illness and death in 1941; arrest with his father in 1942; imprisonment in St. Gilles; interrogations; transfer to Louvain; receiving Red Cross packages; transfer to Aachen, then Neuengamme; starvation, beatings, and public hangings; slave labor; a serious leg infection; hospitalization; a prisoner nurse helping him; clearing rubble from Allied bombings in Hamburg; group sabotage by working more slowly; separation of Jewish prisoners by checking for circumcision; transfer to Cologne; digging trenches at Ford-Köln; transfer to Essen; working in the camp hospital; transfer to Buchenwald; a death march, then train transfer to Dachau; liberation by United States troops; returning home; reunion with his mother, brother, and son; learning his father had not survived; rejoining the police; and remarriage in 1947. Mr. V. discusses relations between national groups in the camps and nightmares resulting from his experiences. He names many individuals and shows documents.
- Published
- Brussels, Belgium : Fondation Auschwitz, 1994
- Interview Date
- May 9, 1994.
- Locale
- Belgium
Ixelles (Belgium)
Lier (Belgium)
Anderlecht (Belgium)
Antwerp (Belgium)
Brussels (Belgium) - Language
-
French
- Copies
- 2 copies: 3/4 in. dub; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
- Cite As
- Michel V. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3006). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
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View in Yale University Library Catalog: http://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/4290058
Record last modified: 2018-05-30 11:27:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/hvt4290058