Eyewitness to History: Holocaust Survivor Joël Nommick

The Eyewitness to History video library was created to enable audiences everywhere to hear firsthand testimony from Holocaust survivors. This video was created from a live digital program, First Person: Conversations with Holocaust Survivors, recorded on March 22, 2023. It features Holocaust survivor Joël Nommick, who was born in 1942 in Mâcon, France, although his family lived in Thoissey, a town nearby. Nazi Germany had defeated France in June 1940. In the following years, German occupation authorities and the collaborationist French government enacted antisemitic legislation and restrictions that made life dangerous for Jews. Though they received assistance and some food from neighbors, the family feared discovery and deportation. Joël’s father was arrested in 1942 and held in eight different prisons, military hospitals, and concentration camps, including Auschwitz. Allied forces liberated most of France in 1944, but Joël’s father never returned. Learn more about Joël: https://www.ushmm.org/remember/holocaust-survivors/volunteers/joel-nommick