Emanuel R. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Emanuel R., who was born in approximately 1911 in Moscow, Russia. He recounts a pleasant pre-revolution life; his bar mitzvah in 1924; emigration to Paris after Lenin's death; his family's Zionism (his father purchased land in Palestine in 1925 where he lives today); attending boarding school; marriage in 1927; French military enlistment; his daughter's birth; posting to the German border in 1939; retreating during German invasion; traveling to Vichy with an admiral; military discharge; reunion with his wife in Toulouse; registering as a non-Jew; joining the underground; working in the family business in Narbonne; fleeing to Marseille with other underground members; obtaining false papers for his parents; living in Italian-occupied Nice, then in Aix-les-Bains; organizing a network to smuggle Jewish children to Switzerland; coordinating with Eclaireurs and MJS; working with Robert Gamzon, Simone Lévitte, Gerhart Riegner, and the mayor of Annemasse, among others; his sister's arrest while smuggling children (she perished in Ravensbrück); smuggling Leʾo Kohen's family (Kohen was caught crossing to Spain and did not survive); transferring his wife and daughter to Geneva; reuniting families after the war with assistance from OSE; and emigration to Israel in 1953. Mr. R. discusses many Jews and non-Jews who financed or aided the smuggling and the continuing impact of his sister's death (he attributes his father's death to learning she had not survived).
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.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- Riegner, Gerhardt.
- Kohen, Leʾo, -- 1913-1945.
- Gamzon, Robert.
- Lévitte, Simone.
- R., Emanuel, -- 1911?-
Corporate Bodies
- Eclaireurs israélites de France.
- Mouvement des jeunesses sionistes (France)
- World Union OSE.
Subjects
- Holocaust survivors.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, Jewish.
- Refugees, Jewish.
- Jews -- Migrations.
- Bar mitzvah.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Men.
- Video tapes.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Rescuers.
- Mutual aid.
- Hiding.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- France.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Jewish resistance.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, French.
- Zionists.
- Italian occupation.
- False papers.
- Postwar experiences.
Places
- Moscow (Russia)
- Marseille (France)
- Paris (France)
- Russia.
- Nice (France)
- Geneva (Switzerland)
- Aix-les-Bains (France)
- Annemasse (France)
- Narbonne (France)
- Vichy (France)
- Toulouse (France)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat