Simon F. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Simon F., who was born in Ti?a?chiv, Czechoslovakia (presently Ukraine) in approximately 1920, the eleventh of sixteen children. He recalls his family's orthodoxy; apprenticeship as a knitter; Hungarian occupation; one brother's emigration to Palestine in 1939; working in a sweater factory in Budapest beginning in 1939; evading draft into a Hungarian slave labor battalion for eighteen months; slave labor in a parachute factory in 1943; marriage in August 1944; deportation to Ko?szeg in November; encountering a brother; slave labor digging ditches; receiving extra food from kitchen workers; helping older prisoners; his brother-in-law praying daily; a mass shooting during a death march to Mauthausen; transfer to Gunskirchen; liberation by United States troops in May; traveling with his brother to Prague; reunion with some sisters (eight of the sixteen siblings survived); reunion with his wife in Budapest; living in a displaced persons camp in Germany; working for UNRRA; and emigration to the United States after three and a half years. Mr. F. discusses participating in a survivor group that erected a monument in 1961; attending a gathering in Washington; and sharing his experiences with children.
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
- F., Simon, -- 1920?-
Corporate Bodies
- Mauthausen (Concentration camp)
- United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.
- Gunskirchen (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Survivor-child relations.
- Mass killings.
- Postwar experiences.
- Refugee camps.
- Concentration camp inmates -- Religious life.
- Mutual aid.
- Hungarian occupation.
- Brothers.
- Husband and wife.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Death marches.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Conscript labor -- Hungary.
- Forced labor.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Men.
Places
- Prague (Czech Republic)
- Ti︠a︡chiv (Ukraine)
- Czechoslovakia.
- Kőszeg (Hungary)
- Budapest (Hungary)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat