Dounia S. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Dounia S., who was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1920, one of three children of Russian émigrés. She recounts her family's assimilated lifestyle; a happy childhood; attending public school and a music conservatory; becoming a Belgian citizen in 1936; attending theater school; working as a comedian; German invasion; fleeing with her family to Saint-Gaudens, France; living for several months in La Barthe; returning home via Paris; her father registering them as Jews, despite her misgivings; leaving home, thinking it too dangerous to stay; living as a non-Jew elsewhere; continuing to work; obtaining false papers with assistance from a church official; her parents hiding one sister in a small town, and the other in a convent, while they hid in several places; her arrest in December 1943; release a week later due to her father bribing officials; re-arrest a few days later; attempting suicide en route to Malines; a one-week hospitalization; observing deportation trains leaving; release after four months; returning to Brussels; hiding with friends; learning her parents had been deported; liberation; learning her parents had not survived; reunion with her sisters; marriage in 1949; and the birth of a daughter. Ms. S. discusses prisoners sharing food in Malines; meeting two women who had known her mother in the camps; reluctance to share her experiences; and emotional problems resulting from her experiences.

4 videocassettes