Deprez, Marcel

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Description de l'interview extraite du site US Fortunoff / Biographie à venir

Marcel Deprez was born in Ans, Belgium in 1920, one of two children. He recounts his parents' staunch Catholicism; attending school in Liège; joining a socialist youth group in 1937; volunteering to fight in Spain; rejection due to his age, but working there with children in a refugee camp for two months in 1938; German invasion in 1940; fleeing with his brother to Aube; returning home; some of his friends wearing yellow stars to protest anti-Jewish measures; joining the Front de l'Indépendance; obtaining weapons; sabotaging phone and rail lines; his brother's arrest; going into hiding; arrest in 1944 for carrying false papers; incarceration in the Citadelle de Liège; interrogation and torture; pleading guilty to all charges at trial; transfer to Bergen-Belsen; hospitalization; transfer to Langenargen; slave labor in a factory; abandonment by German guards; traveling by bicycle to Erfurt; hospitalization; returning home; reunion with his girlfriend; brief arrest on suspicion of being a collaborator; convalescing in a sanatorium; reunion with his brother; completing his education; and continuing activities in support of his socialist ideology. He discusses political issues at length; the importance of keeping his autonomy and help from others to his survival; not sharing his experience with his daughter until she was nineteen; visiting Bergen-Belsen and other sites with her; planning to do the same with his grandson; and learning through archival research that his mother had participated in underground activities.

(Copyright : Fortunoff Video Archives for Holocaust Testimonies – Yale)

Ressources

Fiche interview

Code interview : YA/FA/092
Date interview : 25/10/1995 - 11/03/1996
Lieu interview : Centre Audiovisuel de l’Université Libre de Bruxelles
Durée interview : 6h20
Langue interview : Français
Interviewers : Yannis Thanassekos et Michel Rosenfeldt
Cameraman : Adrien Antoniol et Guerric Marcipont
Consultation : Autorisée
Indexation thématique : non
Séquençage interview : non

Mots-clés du témoignage :
Bergen-Belsen | Front de l’Indépendance (F.I.) | Partisans armés / Armée belge des Partisans | Résistant / Résistante | Service de Renseignement et d’Action (S.R.A.)