Jack Y. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Jack Y., who was born in ?o?dz?, Poland in 1926. He recalls his traditional family; German invasion; his father's brief flight to Warsaw; ghettoization; forced factory labor; hiding his younger brother during round-ups; pervasive starvation, disease, and deaths; deportation to Auschwitz in 1944; separation from his parents and brothers; transfer to Oberbayern soon after; slave labor repairing bombing damage; transfer to Buchenwald, then Theresienstadt; liberation by the Red Cross and Soviet troops; learning his father was alive; their reunion in ?o?dz?; his father's remarriage; smuggling himself to Germany; living in Landsberg displaced persons camp; emigration to the United States in June 1949; marriage in 1950 to a woman he met on the ship to the U.S.; and discovering, when his father visited, that his father's wife and his own wife were bunk mates in a concentration camp. Mr. Y. discusses constant fear in the ghetto; learning sixteen years after the war that one of his brothers had survived; health problems resulting from beatings in camps; pervasive painful memories and nightmares; sharing his experiences with his children; participating in survivor organizations; and encouraging respect for every human.
Extent and Medium
2 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
- Y., Jack, -- 1926-
Corporate Bodies
- Theresienstadt (Concentration camp)
- International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Buchenwald (Concentration camp)
- Landsberg am Lech (Displaced persons camp)
Subjects
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Forced labor.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- Jews -- Poland -- Łódź.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Child survivors.
- Nightmares.
- Postwar effects.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Postwar experiences.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Men.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
Places
- Poland.
- Łódź (Poland)
- Oberbayern (Germany : Concentration camp)
- Łódź ghetto.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat