Félix G. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Félix G., who was born in Forest, Belgium to Polish immigrants in 1926, one of three sons. He recalls growing up in Brussels; his family's focus on education; doing well in school; German invasion; fleeing with his family to Abbeville; returning when overtaken by German troops; anti-Jewish restrictions including expulsion from school and wearing the star; arrest in September 1942; incarceration in Malines; love at first sight for another prisoner (Frieda); deportation to Sakrau; separation from Frieda (he never saw her again); transfer to Königshütte; slave labor building barracks, then in a factory; his friend's death; transfer to the hospital at Laurahütte when he was ill; assistance from a Jewish doctor who had known his older brother; return to Königshütte when he recovered, and a month later to Blechhammer; public hanging of a friend; a Belgian forced laborer recognizing him and bringing him a food package from a former teacher; a death march to Gross-Rosen; a futile escape attempt; permanent injuries resulting from a beating when he was caught; transfer to Buchenwald; being placed on a pile of corpses; liberation by United States troops; recovering for a month; repatriation; his older brother's return from the camps and suicide; reunion with his younger brother who had been hidden as a non-Jew; learning his parents had been deported and killed; placement in tuberculosis sanitaria in Davos and Leysin for three years; and completing law school in 1953. Mr. G. discusses dehumanization and losing his ability to cry and to feel in camps; lack of solidarity among prisoners; strained relations between west and east European Jews; the failures of Belgium's Jewish leadership; his book about Frieda; not marrying due to never feeling as strongly about another woman; and concluding there is no answer to his quest to understand how humans could treat others with such sadism and cruelty.
Extent and Medium
10 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., Félix, -- 1926-
Corporate Bodies
- Gross-Rosen (Concentration camp)
- Buchenwald (Concentration camp)
- Laurahütte (Concentration camp)
- Blechhammer E/3 (Concentration camp)
- Malines (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Postwar effects.
- Postwar experiences.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Hospitals in concentration camps.
- Mutual aid.
- Child survivors.
- Concentration camps -- Sociological aspects.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Death marches.
- Forced labor.
- Friendship.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Men.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
Places
- Königshütte (Poland : Concentration camp)
- Leysin (Switzerland)
- Sakrau (Poland : Concentration camp)
- Geneva (Switzerland)
- Davos (Switzerland)
- Brussels (Belgium)
- Abbeville (France)
- Forest (Brabant, Belgium)
- Belgium.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat