Sophie W. Holocaust testimony (HVT-4278) [videorecording] / interviewed by Nina Toussaint and Jean-Marie De Becker, March 27, 2001.

Brussels, Belgium : Fondation Auschwitz, 2001.

1 videorecording (2 hr., 54 min.) : col.

French

This testimony is in French.

Videotape testimony of Sophie W., who was born in Liège, Belgium in 1928, the daughter of Polish immigrants. She recounts her father's ethnic, rather than religious Jewish identity; his participation in Jewish leftist organizations; attending primary and high school; cordial relations with non-Jews; German invasion; fleeing to France with her family; her father's return to Liège after three months; she and her mother living with relatives in Bergerac for another three months; returning home; anti-Jewish restrictions; her teachers' sympathetic response; her father's arrest as a Belgian while fleeing; his deportation for forced labor in Germany; she and her mother hiding with resistance members in Amay, then in a convent for about eight months; her father's return; living with her parents in Mounteville as non-Jews using false papers; hiding briefly in Melreux; arrest with her mother in March 1943; incarceration in the Liège Citadelle; their escape; hiding with a priest; her aunt obtaining new false documents for them; her parents sending her and a cousin to a convent in Durbuy; living in Soy with her parents from April 1943 to September 1945; liberation by United States troops; returning to Liège; living briefly in Brussels and Charleroi; marriage; and sharing her experiences with her children. Ms. W. discusses the kindness of many who helped them; learning of concentration and death camps from returning survivors; relatives who did not return; testifying against a Belgian collaborator; and her cultural Jewish identity, including sending her sons to Israel, despite her lack of belief.

April 23, 2004

Sophie W. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-4278). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Sophie W. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-4278). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Oral histories (document genres)