Martin P. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Martin P., who was born in Amsterdam in approximately 1928, one of three sons. He recounts attending gymnasium; weekly Hebrew lessons at home; antisemitic harassment by Dutch children; his father traveling to the United States in spring 1940 and remaining there; German invasion in May; eviction from their apartment; expropriation of his father's business; expulsion from school; attending a Jewish school; hiding their housekeeper (a Czech Jew) from the Germans; deportation with his mother and brothers to Westerbork; forced labor as a bricklayer; transfer to Bergen-Belsen nine months later; lack of sanitation, crowding, and hunger; assignment as an errand boy for the Germans; hospitalization; a Jewish-Greek surgeon operating on his brother; burying corpses in mass graves; evacuation by train; contracting typhus; liberation by Soviet troops; walking to Tröbitz; obtaining food and housing; sending notes to relatives via the Red Cross; transfer to a displaced persons camp in Leipzig; returning to Amsterdam with the Red Cross; traveling to Paris; he and his family obtaining visas for the United States; and emigration via Lisbon to join his father in February 1946. Mr. P. discusses his assumption in camp that he would survive despite suffering without relief, and the impact of his lost childhood on rearing his own children.

2 videocassettes