Verfaille, Auguste

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

Auguste Verfaille born in Mouscron, Belgium in 1920, one of eleven children. He recalls receiving his diploma as an auto mechanic in 1938; sheltering German Jewish refugees; twice daily prayers at home; working in Liège; German invasion; returning home; briefly fleeing to Bailleul, France; participating in the Resistance; his family hiding Jews; learning his arrest was imminent; fleeing to La Rochefoucauld in March 1943; arrest; incarceration in Angoulême and Poitiers; deportation from Compiègne to Buchenwald in June; remaining with one friend; slave labor in a quarry; transfer to the garage, then Gustloffwerke I; transport to Laura; working in the garage, a privileged position; receiving food from the civilian boss and German soldiers; sharing packages from home; evacuation in April 1945; escaping with four others; liberation by United States troops eleven days later; assistance from the Red Cross; returning home from Bamberg in May; learning all his brothers had survived; emigration to the Congo; and return to Belgium in 1961. Mr. V. discusses group relations in the camps; attending mass in Compiègne; prisoners' brutality toward friends due to circumstances; visiting Buchenwald and Laura with his wife and children in 1990; and the inhumanity of the SS.

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

Ressources

Fiche interview

Code interview : YA/FA/063
Date interview : 15/02/1995
Lieu interview : Centre Audiovisuel de l’Université Libre de Bruxelles
Durée interview : 3h26
Langue interview : Français
Interviewers : Elisabeth Inchusta et Michel Rosenfeldt
Cameraman : Adrien Antoniol
Consultation : Autorisée
Indexation thématique : Oui
Séquençage interview : non

Mots-clés du témoignage :
Buchenwald | Compiègne (camp) | Laura / Buchenwald | Poitiers (prison) | Prisonnier politique