Serge V. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Serge V., who was born in Paris, France in 1931. He recalls his parents' secularism; cordial relations in their non-Jewish neighborhood; German occupation; pervasive antisemitic propaganda; his Catholic friends and their priest continuing their friendships; confiscation of his father's business; his father's escape to unoccupied France; his mother instructing him to escape to friends near Bordeaux during the Vel d'Hiver round-up; traveling to Bordeaux alone; loving care from his family's friends; being smuggled to unoccupied France to join his father; living in Pau in youth houses (it was dangerous to stay with his father); following his father to Grenoble in the Italian zone; obtaining false papers; hiding in a secret room with relatives; liberation by United States troops; their return to Paris; seeking his mother and brother; hearing about death camps; learning his brother had been deported two weeks before liberation; learning from the Red Cross that his mother had survived; her difficult physical and emotional recovery; and their emigration to Canada in 1947. Mr. V. discusses recently learning his brother's fate; feeling afraid when recalling his experiences; sharing his story with his wife, but not his children, despite their interest; and recently seeing his rescuer's son in Bordeaux.

2 videocassettes