Iohan B. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Iohan B. who was born in Ilva Mare, Romania in 1923, one of seven children in a poor family. He recalls attending a Jewish school until the seventh grade, then high school; quitting school to work at age fourteen and a half; becoming a licensed mechanic; Hungarian occupation; anti-Jewish restrictions; firing of all Jews from his factory ; refusing to emigrate because he did not want to leave his parents; ghettoization with his family in Bistrit?a ghetto for three weeks; and deportation to Auschwitz. Mr. B. describes the pain of seeing his family suffer; separation from his father and brother in a transport to Buchenwald; working in a munitions factory in Bochum; praying to die; liberation by British troops; returning to Ilve Mare to seek surviving family; initially finding no other Jews; the return of two of his sisters; learning of his father's and brother's deaths; living with an aunt in a nearby town; marriage; and emigration to the United States in 1966. He discusses a visit with his son to Auschwitz-Birkenau and the vivid return of his memory while there.
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
- B., Iohan, -- 1923-
Corporate Bodies
- Buchenwald (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Men.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Forced labor.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Postwar experiences.
- Jews -- Romania -- Bistrița.
- Hungarian occupation.
Places
- Bistrița (Bistrița-Năsăud, Romania)
- Bistrița ghetto.
- Romania.
- Ilva Mare (Romania)
- Bochum (Germany : Concentration camp)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat