Joseph B. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Joseph B., a non-Jew who was born in Stráže, Czechoslovakia in approximately 1921. He recalls attending school in Prague; enlisting in the Czech air force; German annexation; joining the underground; traveling with a group being smuggled to England; hiding in Komárno where a Jewish woman was hiding; bringing her with them; arrest at the Hungarian border; imprisonment in Budapest; release by the underground; traveling to Constanța, then to England; training in Scapa Flow and then an RAF school; flying missions against German planes; being shot down over Germany; arrest in Emden; a year of solitary confinement and torture in Zelenstrasse prison (Nuremberg), then almost another year in Stadelheim prison (Munich); transfer to Dachau; resisting threats of shooting if he did not reveal information; transfer to Buchenwald in November 1943; contact with United States POWs; stripping uniforms from dead non-Jews and supplying them to Jews, which saved their lives; transfer to another camp; forced labor in an airplane factory; a Belgian partisan supplying him and another prisoner with false papers and civilian clothing; escaping on December 28, 1944; returning to England; joining Allied forces in Germany to get revenge; reunion with his parents after the war; a Czech diplomatic appointment in Munich; remaining after Czechoslovakia became communist; emigrating to the United States; marriage to an American; and serving in Korea. Mr. B. discusses sharing his experiences with his wife and children; speaking at schools; a recent RAF reunion; and visiting Dachau and Buchenwald. He shows photographs and documents.
Extent and Medium
3 videocassettes
Conditions Governing Access
This testimony is open with permission.
Conditions Governing Reproduction
Copyright has been transferred to the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. Use of this testimony requires permission of the Fortunoff Video Archive.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- B., Joseph, -- 1921?-
Corporate Bodies
- Dachau (Concentration camp)
- Buchenwald (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Video tapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, Czech.
- Concentration camp inmates.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, Hungarian.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, British.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Czech.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Czech Republic.
- Men.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Concentration camps -- Underground movements.
- Revenge.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Forced labor.
- Escapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, German.
- Prisoners of war -- Germany.
- Postwar experiences.
- False papers.
Places
- Prague (Czech Republic)
- Czechoslovakia.
- Budapest (Hungary)
- Komárno (Západoslovenský kraj, Slovakia)
- Stráže (Czechoslovakia)
- Scapa Flow (Scotland)
- Constanța (Romania)
- Munich (Germany)
- Emden (Lower Saxony, Germany)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat