Dounia S. Holocaust testimony (HVT-4226) interviewed by Michel Rosenfeldt and Massimo Ianetta,

Videotape testimony of Dounia S., who was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1920, one of three children of Russian émigrés. She recounts her family's assimilated lifestyle; a happy childhood; attending public school and a music conservatory; becoming a Belgian citizen in 1936; attending theater school; working as a comedian; German invasion; fleeing with her family to Saint-Gaudens, France; living for several months in La Barthe; returning home via Paris; her father registering them as Jews, despite her misgivings; leaving home, thinking it too dangerous to stay; living as a non-Jew elsewhere; continuing to work; obtaining false papers with assistance from a church official; her parents hiding one sister in a small town, and the other in a convent, while they hid in several places; her arrest in December 1943; release a week later due to her father bribing officials; re-arrest a few days later; attempting suicide en route to Malines; a one-week hospitalization; observing deportation trains leaving; release after four months; returning to Brussels; hiding with friends; learning her parents had been deported; liberation; learning her parents had not survived; reunion with her sisters; marriage in 1949; and the birth of a daughter. Ms. S. discusses prisoners sharing food in Malines; meeting two women who had known her mother in the camps; reluctance to share her experiences; and emotional problems resulting from her experiences.