Lajzer F. Holocaust testimony (HVT-4020) [videorecording] / interviewed by Yannis Thanassekos and Michel Rosenfeldt, May 22, 1995.

Brussels, Belgium : Fondation Auschwitz, 1995.

1 videorecording (7 hr., 58 min.) : col.

French

Videotape testimony of Lajzer F. who was born in Łódź, Poland in 1923, the oldest of four children. He recalls moving to Charleroi when he was six; belonging to Zionist youth groups; moving to Brussels in 1936; German invasion; his father registering them as Jews as demanded; forced labor with his brothers in France for Organisation Todt; hospitalization in Boulogne; learning his parents and sister had been deported (they did not return); escape (his brothers followed); hiding together; joining a left-wing Resistance group; killing a traitor who denounced Jews; arrest in April 1944; torture for days; realizing his entire unit had been betrayed; solitary confinement in Breendonk; transfer to Buchenwald; strong solidarity among the Belgians; exchanging a corpse for a man wanted by the SS, thus saving the man's life; slave labor in an aircraft factory; a death march to Leipzig; boat transfer to Czechoslovakia; abandonment by the guards; prisoners beating one cruel guard who had been captured by the Allies; walking to Plzeň; repatriation; assistance from the Red Cross; reunion with his brothers in Brussels; marriage to a Jew who had been in hiding; living with her rescuers; and sharing his story with his daughter. Mr. F. discusses his nightmares; prisoners psychologically never leaving the camps; and the limits of language to describe their horrors.

June 01, 2002

Lajzer F. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-4020). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Lajzer F. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-4020). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Oral histories (document genres)