Paulette W. Holocaust testimony (HVT-1732) interviewed by Brenda Stiefel and Gabriele Schiff,

Videotape testimony of Paulette W., who was born in Antwerp, Belgium in 1934. She recalls a happy childhood; German invasion in May 1940; fleeing with her parents to Toulouse; living in a refugee camp; joining relatives near Pau; her father's incarceration in a labor camp; his visit in 1942; being hidden in several places by a Jewish organization; her brother's birth in 1943; being hidden in a convent; her mother working for farmers nearby; assistance from teachers who were partisans; not knowing she was Jewish; her father retrieving her after the war in May 1945; returning with her parents and brother to Antwerp; feeling privileged to have survived as a family; marriage to an Auschwitz survivor in 1956; their emigration to the United States; bringing her parents and brother six months later; and the births of two daughters. Ms. W. discusses strengthening her Jewish identity; her husband sharing his experiences with her; her daughters not wanting to hear their stories until recently; and sharing her sense of abandonment and loneliness with other child survivors. She shows photographs.