- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Cecile H., who was born in Erlangen, Germany in 1923. She recounts her father's ancestors were Moses and Felix Mendelssohn (Nazi policy categorized him as "three-quarters Jewish"); being raised as a Protestant; her father's death in 1930; not being allowed to join the female Nazi youth due to her Jewish ancestry; her half-brother and fiancé serving in the Wehrmacht (they both died); expulsion from school due to a suggestive photograph, not due to racial reasons; hospitalization in Altdorf for tuberculosis; attending university as a "guest student"; doing dissertation research in Prague; enjoying theater and socializing with Nazis; exemption from war labor due to ill health; liberation by United States troops; completing her dissertation; moving to Berlin in 1965; marriage to a Jew; founding the Mendelssohn-Gesellschaft; her career as a historian; and donating her and her husband's archive to the government. She discusses believing in collective responsibility rather than collective guilt; her own responsibility in this realm; and the fates of her and her husband's relatives during the war.
- Author/Creator
- H., Cecile, 1923-
- Published
- Potsdam, Germany : Moses Mendelssohn Zentrum für europäisch-jüdische Studien, Universität Potsdam, 1997
- Interview Date
- March 14, 1997.
- Locale
- Germany
Erlangen (Germany)
Prague (Czech Republic)
Altdorf (Nürnberger Land, Germany)
- Cite As
- Cecile H. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3734). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Gelbin, Cathy S., interviewer.
Lezzi, Eva, interviewer.
- Notes
-
This testimony is in German.
