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Roessler, Karl-Georg - Oral History of a Holocaust Survivor

https://www.cjhn.ca/link/cjhn60301
Collection
WITNESS TO HISTORY COLLECTION (MHMC-02)
Description Level
Item
Material Type
moving images
Physical Description
01:41:05
Collection
WITNESS TO HISTORY COLLECTION (MHMC-02)
Description Level
Item
Material Type
moving images
Physical Description
01:41:05
Creator
Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre
Language
English
Notes
Karl-Georg Roessler was born in Crimmitschau, Germany on September 1, 1923. He and his sister grew up in a secular home; only his mother was Jewish. After the Nazis passed the restrictive Anti-Jewish Nuremberg laws in 1935, his father divorced his mother. Karl and his older sister stayed with their mother and were considered as Jews. In September 1940, Karl's maternal grandmother was deported to Plauen where she had to live in the Jewish ghetto. Karl and his mother joined her there. His grandmother and mother were later sent to Theresienstadt. On April 4, 1944, Karl was deported to a labour camp in Valognes, France, to do heavy manual labour at a construction site. In June 1944, Karl escaped the camp and stayed in hiding in the outskirts of Paris. He returned to Germany where he continued living in hiding with a family whose daughter would later become his wife. Karl returned to his home town but was arrested by the German police and placed in solitary confinement in the district prison for eight weeks. Shortly after, the American Army arrived. After liberation, Karl traveled to Theresienstadt by motor bike to reunite with his mother and together they returned to Plauen. After the war, Karl became politically active against Communism; as a result, he was blacklisted and had to escape from East Germany to West Germany where he was employed by the American Military Government. Karl and his family came to Canada in 1960 as he was offered a position in Montreal as the president of a company. He was later transferred to California for ten years.
Accession No.
WTH-090
Name Access
Roessler, Karl-Georg
Places
Crimmitschau, Germany, Europe
Archival / Genealogical
Archival Descriptions
Repository
Montreal Holocaust Museum
Images
Less detail