Serge K. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Serge K., who was born in Saint Mande?, France in 1929. He recalls his family's secular life; German invasion; fleeing with his family to Marseille via Argenton-sur-Creuse, Orle?ans, and Cha?teauroux; German bombardment en route; attending high school; joining the Jewish scouts (EIF); arrest with his family in May 1943; imprisonment; transfer to Drancy; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau in July 1943; separation from his father, mother and sister (he never saw them again); a prisoner advising him to say he was older; a privileged assignment indoors; hospitalization; a Polish non-Jew sharing packages with him; a doctor and German non-Jewish prisoner saving him from selections; a privileged position in the hospital removing corpses and cleaning rooms; assignment to Canada Kommando; trying to help arriving prisoners (e.g. warning young women to give their children to others); public hangings; friendship with Greek Jews that helped him feel human; the Sonderkommando uprising in October 1944; transfer to Gross-Rosen; slave labor in a quarry, a forest, then the burial brigade; liberation in May 1945 by Soviet troops; repatriation to Hotel Lutetia in Paris via Bratislava and Plzen?; and living in an orphanage in Boulogne-Billancourt for four years, which helped him adjust to "normal" life. Mr. K discusses the camp hierarchy; his dual identity both as a survivor and as someone with everyday problems; and his negative Jewish identity, defined for him by antisemitism.
Extent and Medium
4 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. This testimony cannot be used for commercial purposes.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- K., Serge, -- 1929-
Corporate Bodies
- Hotel Lutetia (Paris, France)
- Gross-Rosen (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
- Eclaireurs israélites de France.
- Drancy (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Friendship.
- Brothers and sisters.
- Concentration camps -- Sociological aspects.
- Forced labor.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, German.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- Mothers and sons.
- Fathers and sons.
- Child survivors.
- Quarries and quarrying.
- Hospitals in concentration camps.
- Mutual aid.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Identification (Religion)
- Orphanages -- France.
- Men.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Postwar experiences.
- Postwar effects.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Concentration camps -- Revolts.
Places
- Saint-Mandé (France)
- Argenton-sur-Creuse (France)
- France.
- Marseille (France)
- Bratislava (Slovakia)
- Orléans (France)
- Châteauroux (France)
- Plzeň (Czech Republic)
- Boulogne-Billancourt (France)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat