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Oral history interview with Stephanie Hessel

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1995.A.1285.19 | RG Number: RG-50.149.0019

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    Oral history interview with Stephanie Hessel

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Stephane Hessel, born in Berlin, Germany in 1917, describes his family moving to Paris, France in 1924; his parents; his education; his attitude towards the Nazi regime and his reaction to the Munich Crisis in 1938; his conscription into French Army in 1939 and being an officer; the retreat after May 10, 1940 and the morale in the French Army; his attitude towards Fifth Column; reaction to the Dunkirk Evacuation and Mers el Kebir; escaping from France to Great Britain in 1940-1941; being an officer with Bureau Central de Renseignements et d’Action (BCRA) in England from 1942 to 1944; his initial training as a navigator with the Royal Air Force from 1941 to 1942; being recruited to intelligence service; his role and duties; aspects of operations as officer with the BCRA in 1944; parachuting into France in March 1944; his role organizing resistance communications; being captured by the Gestapo and interrogated; being sent to Buchenwald concentration camp in October 1944; arriving in the camp; his change of identity; working in a German factory; escaping from the camp and being re-captured; being sent to Dora concentration camp in February 1945; living under threat of execution; conversations with V2 saboteurs; escaping from a train near Luneburg, Germany in April 1945; joining US forces near Hanover, Germany; his temporary capture by SS; the comparisons between Buchenwald and Dora concentration camps; control by ‘criminal’ inmates in Dora; working on V-weapons; sabotage attempt on V-weapons; his own Kommando at Dora; the arrival of victims from concentration camps in the east; the use of limited power by ‘political’ inmates in Buchenwald; the divide and rule tactics employed in concentration camps; the attitude towards Russian inmates in Buchenwald; memories of Wing Commander F F E Yeo-Thomas; his opinion of misconceptions about concentration camps; the Nazi attitude towards camp inmates; his contact with Jehovah’s Witnesses in the camps; the behavior of ‘mussulmen’; possessing an escaping mentality; Rottleberode work camp; the degree of breakdown in Germany in the spring of 1945; the effects of his experiences on personal attitudes; the achievements of the resistance in France in 1944; and his observations on the British during World War II.
    Interviewee
    Stephanie Hessel
    Date
    interview:  1989 June 18

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    2 sound cassettes (90 min.).

    Rights & Restrictions

    Conditions on Access
    There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
    Conditions on Use
    Restrictions on use. Permission to copy and/or use recordings in any production must be granted by the Imperial War Museums.

    Keywords & Subjects

    Personal Name
    Hessel, Stephanie, 1917-

    Administrative Notes

    Holder of Originals
    Imperial War Museum
    Provenance
    The interview was conducted by the Imperial War Museum as part of their retrospective oral history interview program. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum acquired a copy of the interview with Stephanie Hessel from the Imperial War Museum in February 1995.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:17:22
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn510827

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