Sam G. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Sam G., who was born in Poland. He recounts antisemitic harassment; attending school in Piotrko?w Trybunalski; working in ?o?dz?; bringing his mother there for surgery in late summer 1939; German invasion delaying the surgery; her death; difficulty providing a Jewish burial due to German restrictions; returning home; eviction from their home by the Germans; his brother's disappearance (he suspects he escaped to Soviet territory and harbors the hope he is still alive); a childhood friend who was a German officer warning him to leave town; the mayor providing him with false papers as a non-Jew; his father's refusal to leave; traveling to Warsaw; working with Armia Krajowa (AK), the Polish underground; smuggling arms to Warsaw from Min?sk Mazowiecki; traveling to Dobre to obtain arms; leaving when an AK colleague discovered he was Jewish; entering the Warsaw ghetto; escaping two weeks later; returning to Piotrko?w; entering the ghetto to join his family; public hangings and shootings; deportation to Bliz?yn, then Birkenau; slave labor; assistance from a fellow prisoner to obtain a privileged assignment in Canada Kommando; clearing freight cars after new prisoners arrived; learning of the gas chambers and crematoria; planning to commit suicide; changing his mind at the last minute in order to document what he observed; train transport to Kaltwasser in 1944; a death march to Flossenbu?rg; transfer to Mu?hldorf; liberation from a train by United States soldiers; and a nurse in a field hospital saving his life.
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
- Sam G.
Corporate Bodies
- Poland. -- Polskie Siły Zbrojne. -- Armia Krajowa.
- Kaltwasser (Concentration camp)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
- Mühldorf (Concentration camp)
- Flossenbürg (Concentration camp)
- Blizyn (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Mutual aid.
- False papers.
- Jews -- Poland -- Warsaw.
- Escapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Poland.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Video tapes.
- Men.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Aid by non-Jews
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Death marches.
- Forced labor.
- Suicide.
- Jews -- Poland -- Piotrków Trybunalski.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Holocaust survivors.
Places
- Warsaw (Poland)
- Mińsk Mazowiecki (Poland)
- Piotrków Trybunalski (Poland)
- Łódź (Poland)
- Dobre (Poland)
- Warsaw ghetto.
- Poland.
- Piotrków ghetto.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat