Zezette L. Holocaust testimony (HVT-100) interviewed by Laurel Vlock

Videotape testimony of Zezette L., who was born in Belgium in 1929. She describes the German invasion and her surprise at being sent by her parents to hide in a Catholic convent; her attempts to fit in by imitating the other girls during her stay of a year and a half; and leaving the convent on April 1943 for a visit to her parents, during which the three of them were discovered on Easter Sunday, arrested, and immediately deported to Malines. She tells of the train journey to Auschwitz; separation from her parents; and her mother's selection for gassing. She details her solitary, mute and inhuman life in Auschwitz; the silent exchanges between her and her father when he arranged to deliver food to her block (he did not survive); her liberation and return to Belgium to look for relatives; and her journey to Holland, where her brother, who had also survived the war, was living. Ms. L. also relates her emigration to the United States; the turning point in her life when she reached the age her mother had been when she met her death; her return to Auschwitz, where she conducted a personal memorial service; and her subsequent ability to speak about her experiences.