Holdings Information

Bibliographic Record Display

• Author/Creator:G., Félix, 1926-
  
• Title:Félix G. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3458) [videorecording] / interviewed by Yannis Thanassekos and Michel Rosenfeldt, March 20, 1995 and March 31, 1995.
  
• Published/Created:Brussels, Belgium : Fondation Auschwitz, 1995.
  
• Physical Description:2 videorecordings (6 hr. and 2 hr., 10 min.) : col.
  

• Yale Holdings

  Holdings Record Display

  • Location:LSF-Physical copy for request by library staff only
    Staff Request for Use in Manuscripts and Archives
    
    
  • Call Number: MS 1322
    
  • Status:Not Checked Out
    
  •   Digital testimony (mssa.hvt.3458)
    For information on where you can view this digital testimony, click here.
    

   
• Notes:Related publication: A Frieda : témoignage / Félix Gutmacher. -- Bruxelles : F. Gutmacher, c1994.
  This testimony is in French.
  2 copies: 3/4 in. dub; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
  
• Summary: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.
  
• Format:Archives or Manuscripts
• Cite as:Félix G. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3458). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
  
• Subjects:G., Félix, 1926-
  Malines (Concentration camp)
  Laurahütte (Concentration camp)
  Blechhammer E/3 (Concentration camp)
  Gross-Rosen (Concentration camp)
  Buchenwald (Concentration camp)
  Holocaust survivors.
  Video tapes.
  Men.
  Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives.
  World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, Jewish.
  World War, 1939-1945--Children.
  Jewish children in the Holocaust.
  World War, 1939-1945--Atrocities.
  Friendship.
  Forced labor.
  Death marches.
  Concentration camps--Psychological aspects.
  Concentration camps--Sociological aspects.
  Belgium.
  Forest (Brabant, Belgium)
  Brussels (Belgium)
  Abbeville (France)
  Geneva (Switzerland)
  Davos (Switzerland)
  Leysin (Switzerland)
  
• Subjects (Local Yale):Child survivors.
  Mutual aid.
  Hospitals in concentration camps.
  Aid by non-Jews.
  Postwar experiences.
  Postwar effects.
  Sakrau (Poland : Concentration camp)
  Königshütte (Poland : Concentration camp)
  
• Genre/Form:Oral histories (document genres)
  
• Also listed under:Thanassekos, Yannis, interviewer.
  Rosenfeldt, Michel, interviewer.