Advanced Search

Learn About The Holocaust

Special Collections

My Saved Research

Login

Register

Help

Skip to main content

Oral history interview with Gert Alexander

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 2014.542.26 | RG Number: RG-50.812.0026

Search this record's additional resources, such as finding aids, documents, or transcripts.

No results match this search term.
Check spelling and try again.

results are loading

0 results found for “keyward

    Oral history interview with Gert Alexander

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Gert Alexander, born 40 km from Berlin, Germany on March 8, 1927, discusses his life events; the OSE (OEuvre de secours aux enfants) altering his birth year for documents; being on the OSE convoy of children from Berlin to Switzerland, which was the last legal convoy allowed by Nazis; being stopped at Annemasse, France by Italians with 12 other children (each child was carrying a forged and a real identity card); being transferred to Hôtel Pax; how when Italians stopped the convoy, he tore up his French ID card; being turned over to French police; being relocated to a children’s home while the OSE organized departures; being transferred first to Geneva and later to Paris and eventually to Chabannes; (Gert deviates from chronology to explain that he was placed by parents in a children’s home in Berlin 1938); serendipitously securing OSE passage to Paris to a chateau in Quincy-sous-Sénart (30 km south of Paris); the owner of the chateau, Count Hubert Conquere de Monbrison, who had agreed in response to his children’s Jewish doctor and OSE board member to hide refugee children; staying at Quincy-sous-Sénart until September 1940; being transferred to a Quaker children’s home near Porte des Lilas in Paris; being provided with identity papers indicating they were under Quaker protection; being able to venture around Paris and go to school without great risk until the Americans entered the war, at which time they were transferred to Chabannes in 1941; life in Chabannes; learning a leather trade and participating in sports events; education in the chateau; the difficult winter and illness at the chateau; going to school; the absence of fear; the deportation of his parents from Berlin to Theresienstadt and later to Auschwitz where they were murdered; and the photos, letters, and documents confirming his parents’ murder at Auschwitz (Gert shows these materials during the interview).
    Interviewee
    Gert Alexander
    Interviewer
    Lisa Gossels
    Dean Wetherell
    Date
    1996-1998
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Lisa Gossels and Dean Wetherell

    Physical Details

    Language
    French
    Genre/Form
    Documentary films.
    Extent
    3 videocasettes (Betacam SP) : sound, color ; 1/2 in..

    Rights & Restrictions

    Conditions on Access
    There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
    Conditions on Use
    Restrictions on use. Copyright on this collection has been retained by the donors. Third party use requests must be submitted to Good Egg Productions, Inc. and Wetherell & Associates, Inc. See childrenofchabannes.org for contact information.

    Keywords & Subjects

    Administrative Notes

    Provenance
    Lisa Gossels and Dean Wetherell, producers and directors of the documentary "The Children of Chabannes" (1999), donated the oral history interview with Gert Alexander and related footage used in the making of the film to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in June 2014.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 09:32:35
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn539004

    Download & Licensing

    In-Person Research

    Contact Us