Rabbi Armin F. Holocaust testimony

Video testimony of Rabbi Armin F., who was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia in 1926. Mr. F. describes growing up in a small town near Bratislava; Hungarian occupation; studying at Yeshivoth; and his first awareness of danger when a Purim festival was cancelled in Bratislava because of the Anschluss. He recalls German occupation of Budapest, where he had been studying; increased restrictions on Jews; ghettoization; deportation with his family to Auschwitz in May 1944; separation from them; and incarceration in the Zigeunerlager (Gypsy Lager). He discusses Nazi methods of dehumanizing the prisoners; camp hierarchy and rules; arranging to see his mother and sister in Auschwitz; his group of friends who always helped each other; and transfer to Mu?hldorf in September 1944. He recounts forced labor in a forest camp; transport on a train where he met his mother and sister; liberation by Americans; being taken for dead and saved because his mother wanted to see his body; return to Bratislava; emigration to the United States; and education and ordination as a rabbi. Mr. F. discusses his work as an educator; integrating his concentration camp uniform cap into his Seder; teaching a course on the Holocaust at Brooklyn College; and his children. He emphasizes the dehumanizing effects of arrival at Auschwitz; the constant and excruciating hunger; and refusal of Hungarian Jews to recognize their fate at the hands of the Germans.

2 videocassettes (3/4" u-matic)