Gustave J. Holocaust testimony (HVT-1594) interviewed by Ilana Abramovitch and Rayzl, Kalifowicz-Waletsky

Videotape testimony of Gustave J., who was born in Cologne, Germany in 1923, the oldest of five sons. He recounts his father was a rabbi; attending a Jewish school; his father leaving for France in spring 1933 due to antisemtism; being sent to live with relatives in Prague; joining his family in Strasbourg in September; leaving for Vichy when war began in 1939; his father's three month internment as an enemy alien; German invasion in May 1940; internment in Montluçon; release; traveling to Limoges; joining his family in La Chartre; deportation orders in November; escaping to Montélimar; learning they would be deported in August 1942; hiding with non-Jews; traveling to Marseille; obtaining false papers from the underground; meeting his parents and two brothers in Lyon (the two youngest were safe elsewhere); finding a family in Annemasse to smuggle them to Switzerland; arriving in Geneva; living in refugee camps; attending school in Zurich; visiting his parents in Lugano; arrival of his two younger brothers; emigrating from Paris to the United States in 1946; and bringing his family to the U.S. later that year. Mr. J. discusses the importance of his mother's optimism to their survival and many Jews and non-Jews who helped them.