- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Thérèse G., who was born in Kłobuck, Poland in 1928, the older of two sisters. She recounts emigration to Brussels when she was three months old; attending school; German bombing and invasion in May 1940; anti-Jewish laws, including wearing the star; her parents placing her and her sister (with others from her school) in a convent in Louvain in 1942; the nuns instructing them not to reveal they were Jewish; attending mass and praying; her parents retrieving them in 1944, fearing Allied bombings in Louvain; hiding with them and her aunt in Groot-Bijgaarden (Grand Bigard); their denouncement and arrest; incarceration in Avenue Louise for a few days, then in Malines; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau three months later; gender separation upon arrival; remaining with her aunt after selection (she never saw her sister or mother again); several slave labor assignments; nationality tensions among groups of prisoners; crying constantly; a German soldier giving her bread when she cleaned his quarters; transfer with her aunt a few months later to Landsberg, then Türkheim; a public hanging; assignment to the kitchen; a severe beating for taking food; hospitalization for an injured foot; a death march to Dachau, then Wolfratshausen; liberation by United States troops; returning to Brussels; reunion with her father; marriage to a survivor; emigration to Israel; her daughter's birth; and returning to Belgium in 1953. Ms. G. discusses recognition by Yad Vashem of one of the nuns who hid her; the importance of her aunt's constant support to her survival; apathy following liberation; nightmares; finding Auschwitz “sanitized” during a 1970s visit with her husband; and sharing her experiences with her children. She shows photographs and documents.
- Author/Creator
- G., Thérèse, 1928-
- Published
- Brussels, Belgium : Fondation Auschwitz, 2001
- Interview Date
- May 14, 2001.
- Locale
- Poland
Kłobuck (Poland)
Brussels (Belgium)
Louvain (Belgium)
Groot Bijgaarden (Belgium)
Israel
- Cite As
- Thérèse G. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-4282). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Thanassekos, Yannis, interviewer.
De Becker, Jean-Marie, interviewer.
- Notes
-
This testimony is in French.