- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Henri G., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1928. He recounts that his parents were Polish immigrants; uniformed Nazis beating his father in front of him in 1933; his father's deportation to Poland; destruction of their store and home on Kristallnacht; joining his father in Katowice; living with relatives in Przemyśl; Soviet occupation; German invasion; ghettoization; his parents efforts to protect him; having to bury murdered Jews after a mass killing; an attack by the dog of the ghetto Kommandant, Joseph Schwamberger; working for Schwamberger; deportation with his parents to Szebnie in 1943; transfer to Auschwitz/Birkenau; separation from his mother (he never saw her again); slave labor with his father for Siemens; his father's hospitalization (he never saw him again); hospitalization; assistance from a prisoner doctor; assignment to the Canada Kommando, then a factory; a death march from Monowitz to Gleiwitz, then train transport to Buchenwald; assignment to search rubble in Weimar for civilians killed in Allied bombings; transfer to Spaichingen; escaping from a death march; assistance hiding from local Germans; liberation by French troops; staying in Bregenz and a displaced persons camp; joining relatives in Nice via Lyon; attending school in Chambon-sur-Lignon; moving to Israel, then Paris; marriage; and the births of three children. Mr. G. discusses having seen the best and worst of human beings; regret that he felt his parents had deserted him; unhappiness and suicidal wishes after the war and to the present time, despite his loving wife and children; his sense he “died there” and is a zombie; his son's difficulty understanding his feelings; and sadness that his grandson is not Jewish, thus ending his beloved grandfather's heritage.
- Author/Creator
- G., Henri, 1928-
- Published
- Paris, France : Témoignages pour mémoire, 1995
- Interview Date
- February 9, 1995.
- Locale
- Poland
Przemyśl
Germany
Berlin (Germany)
Przemyśl (Poland)
Katowice (Poland)
Bregenz (Austria)
Weimar (Thuringia, Germany)
Lyon (France)
Nice (France)
Le Chambon-sur-Lignon (France)
Israel
Paris (France)
- Cite As
- Henri G. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3215). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Zarka, Josette, interviewer.
Wieviorka, Rachel, interviewer.
- Notes
-
This testimony is in French.
