Madeline G. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Madeline G., who was born in Paris, France in 1921. She recalls her older brother's illness and death when she was ten; her younger sister's birth shortly thereafter; caring for the baby (her mother could not due to the impact of her brother's death); marriage in October 1939; her daughter's birth; her mother's death; living with her father in order to care for her sister; moving to Lyon with her husband and daughter, then to Ise?re; hiding their daughter in a convent; Resistance activities; arrest in Paris with her husband; incarceration in Fresnes; confessing to being Jewish, but not Resistance activities; deportation to Birkenau in May 1944 via Drancy; separation from her husband; singing French songs to raise morale; witnessing a childbirth; the sadistic murder of the newborn by the Germans; transfer to Auschwitz; a death march to Gleiwitz; transfer to Ravensbru?ck, Malchow, Scho?nefeld, and a hospital; liberation; returning to Paris; reunion with her husband at Hotel Lutetia; retrieving their daughter (her father and sister did not survive); and living in the Arde?che. Mrs. G. discusses the importance of friends and helping each other to survival; relations between national groups in the camps; losing faith in God due to her experiences; her daughter's suicide; the impossibility of truly conveying her experiences; her and her husband's loss of joy in living; and her younger daughter's reluctance to share her parents' experiences with her children.
Extent and Medium
2 videocassettes
Conditions Governing Access
This testimony is open with permission.
Conditions Governing Reproduction
Copyright has been transferred to the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. Use of this testimony requires permission of the Fortunoff Video Archive.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- G., Madeline, -- 1921-
Corporate Bodies
- Ravensbrück (Concentration camp)
- Malchow (Concentration camp)
- Hotel Lutetia (Paris, France)
- Centre pénitentiaire de Fresnes.
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
- Drancy (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Mutual aid.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Resistance.
- Friendship.
- Childbirth in concentration camps.
- Survivor-child relations.
- Postwar experiences.
- Postwar effects.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, German.
- Concentration camps -- Songs and music.
- Faith.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- France.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Concentration camps -- Sociological aspects.
- Forced labor.
- Death marches.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Video tapes.
- Women.
Places
- Lyon (France)
- Paris (France)
- France.
- Schönefeld (Germany : Concentration camp)
- Gleiwitz (Poland : Concentration camp)
- Ardèche (France)
- Isère (France)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat