Oral History Interview with Armand Mednick
Armand Mednick, born in 1933 in Brussels, Belgium, describes being called “Avrum” by his Yiddish-speaking parents; growing up in a close family in Brussels; growing up feeling ostracized in a non-Jewish neighborhood and experiencing antisemitism that was influenced by the fascist Rex Party; contracting tuberculosis and being hospitalized at age six until May 1940, when his father, an active political leftist, fled with his family to France; his father being drafted into the French Army and deserted; being placed in a sanitarium at Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne Mountains under the new name “Armand”; his father, mother, and baby sister hiding nearby in Volvic, where they passed as Christians; recovering and joining his family; attending Catholic school; how at home there was some Jewish observance; his memories of walking for seven miles with his father to attend a clandestine seder; his father joining the French resistance in 1944 and the family returning in 1945 to Brussels; celebrating his bar mitzvah; his family moving to Philadelphia, PA in 1947; how the Buchenwald death lists confirmed that most of their extended family of 55 relatives were killed; becoming a potter and teacher; and producing a series of clay reliefs with symbolic Holocaust images, in an attempt to exorcise his painful childhood memories.
Date: | 06/15/1983 |
Interviewer: | Janice Booker |
Interviewee: | Armand Mednick |
Language: | English |
Subject: | Antisemitism--Belgium. Art teachers. Art therapy. Hidden children (Holocaust)--France. Hiding places--France. Holocaust survivors. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in art. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Belgium--Personal narratives. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Religious aspects--Judaism. Jewish children in the Holocaust. Jewish refugees--France. Jews--Belgium--Brussels. Jews--Migrations. Jews--Persecutions--Belgium. Passing (Identity)--France. Potters. Seder. World War, 1939-1945--Jews--France. Men--Personal narratives. |
Location: | Brussels, Belgium Volvic, France USA |
Permalink: | https://hoha.digitalcollections.gratz.edu/item/oral-history-interview-with-armand-mednick/ |
Audio Transcript | Time |
---|---|
1:19:29 | |