Edelsztein, Maurice

Search for:

Biographie

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

Maurice Edelsztein was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1925, the youngest of three children. He recounts his family's 1929 move to Antwerp, then Brussels, to escape from the orthodox community; their assimilated life style; attending school until age fourteen; participating in socialist groups; his family housing a German-Jewish refugee; German invasion in May 1940; he and his brother fleeing to Paris to join the military; his rejection though his brother was accepted; living in a facility for Belgians in Montpellier; working at a vineyard; incarceration at Agde; escaping with a group; recapture; a beating; escaping again; returning to Brussels; refusing to register as a Jew; joining the Resistance; distributing pamphlets and painting swastikas on homes of collaborators; narrowly escaping arrest; obtaining false papers for his parents; their escape to France; joining the armed Resistance; blowing up rail lines and assassinating collaborators; hiding under false papers; arrest as a Resistant in February 1944; incarceration at Avenue Louise; interrogation and beatings for several weeks; and deportation to Malines, then Auschwitz/Birkenau in April.

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

Ressources

Fiche interview

Code interview : YA/FA/147
Date interview : 08/10/1998, 09/10/1998 et 12/10/1998
Lieu interview : Au domicile du témoin (1070 Bruxelles)
Durée interview : 18h50
Langue interview : Français
Interviewers : Yannis Thanassekos et Michel Rosenfeldt
Cameraman : Daniel Weyssow
Consultation : Autorisée
Indexation thématique : non
Séquençage interview : non