August H. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of August H., a Catholic, who was born in Lebbeke, Belgium in 1921, one of nine children. He recalls attending Catholic schools; fleeing south with one brother during the German invasion; returning home; joining a small cell of the Resistance; providing information about train traffic and schedules; working in a factory in Opwijk; arrest; interrogation in Ghent for a week; deportation with his brother to Bochum; their transfer two months later to a prison in Hameln, then a year later to Gross Strehlitz; forced labor making chalk; separation from his brother upon transfer to Gross-Rosen in November 1944; first experiencing the hardships of a concentration camp; feeling he had lost his humanity; transfer in January 1945; liberation by Soviet troops in April; traveling to Leipzig, then returning to Lebbeke; learning his brother had died in Mauthausen immediately after liberation; and recuperating for a few months in a rest home. Mr. H. discusses nightmares resulting from his experiences and not sharing them with his children so they would not have anxieties.
Extent and Medium
2 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
- H., August, -- 1921-
Corporate Bodies
- Gross-Rosen (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Postwar effects.
- Video tapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Belgian.
- Men.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Belgium.
- Concentration camp inmates.
- Brothers.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, German.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Forced labor.
- Postwar experiences.
- Nightmares.
Places
- Belgium.
- Lebbeke (Belgium)
- Opwijk (Belgium)
- Ghent (Belgium)
- Leipzig (Germany)
- Bochum (Germany : Concentration camp)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat