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Oral history interview with Armand Mednick

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1997.A.0441.117 | RG Number: RG-50.462.0117

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    Oral history interview with Armand Mednick

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Armand Mednick, born in 1933 in Brussels, Belgium, describes being called “Avrum” by his Yiddish-speaking parents; growing up in a close family in Brussels; growing up feeling ostracized in a non-Jewish neighborhood and experiencing antisemitism that was influenced by the fascist Rex Party; contracting tuberculosis and being hospitalized at age six until May 1940, when his father, an active political leftist, fled with his family to France; his father being drafted into the French Army and deserted; being placed in a sanitarium at Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne Mountains under the new name “Armand”; his father, mother, and baby sister hiding nearby in Volvic, where they passed as Christians; recovering and joining his family; attending Catholic school; how at home there was some Jewish observance; his memories of walking for seven miles with his father to attend a clandestine seder; his father joining the French resistance in 1944 and the family returning in 1945 to Brussels; celebrating his bar mitzvah; his family moving to Philadelphia, PA in 1947; how the Buchenwald death lists confirmed that most of their extended family of 55 relatives were killed; becoming a potter and teacher; and producing a series of clay reliefs with symbolic Holocaust images, in an attempt to exorcise his painful childhood memories.
    Interviewee
    Mr. Armand Mednick
    Date
    interview:  1983 June 15
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the Gratz College Holocaust Oral History Archive

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    1 sound cassette (60 min.).

    Rights & Restrictions

    Conditions on Access
    There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
    Conditions on Use
    No restrictions on use

    Keywords & Subjects

    Personal Name
    Mednick, Armand, 1933-

    Administrative Notes

    Provenance
    The Gratz College Holocaust Oral History Archive conducted the interview with Armand Mednick in Philadelphia, Pa., on June 15, 1983. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received the tapes of the interview from Gratz College in August 2003.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:36:37
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn515641

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