Jack A. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Jack A., who was born in Be?chato?w, Poland in 1927, one of four children. He recounts a happy childhood; attending public and Hebrew schools; anti-Jewish violence; German invasion in 1939; anti-Jewish restrictions; his older brother fleeing to ?o?dz?, then Warsaw (he was killed in a bombing); public hanging of ten prominent Jews, including his uncle; ghettoization; his sister's marriage; a round-up; his brother's and grandmother's deportation to Che?mno; forced labor with his father cleaning the ghetto; transfer to the ?o?dz? ghetto with his parents and sister; slave labor; his sister giving birth; pervasive deaths; deportation with his parents, sister, and her child to Auschwitz/Birkenau in 1944; his mother, sister, and her child being selected for death; working with his father; praying daily; transfer four weeks later to Siegmar-Schoenau; slave labor in a factory; his father sharing food; Allied bombings; transfer to Hohenstein-Ernstthal; a death march to Czechoslovakia in April 1945; liberation; transfer to Prague; hospitalization; his father's transfer to Plzen?; not finding him there; returning to Be?chato?w; reunion with his father; Poles in their house refusing to return it; antisemitic harassment; rebuilding his father's tannery; a death threat by a Polish paramilitary group; traveling to ?o?dz?, then Germany; living in Freising; his father's remarriage; his sister's birth; visiting his aunt in Sweden in 1948; remaining there; his father's, stepmother's and sister's emigration to Israel; meeting his future wife (a survivor from Be?chato?w); emigration to the United States in 1953; marriage; and his father's death from cancer in 1957. He shows photographs.
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
- A., Jack, -- 1927-
Corporate Bodies
- International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Antisemitism -- Postwar.
- Child survivors.
- Childbirth in Jewish ghettos.
- Postwar experiences.
- Concentration camp inmates -- Family relationships.
- Fathers and sons.
- Death marches.
- Concentration camp inmates -- Religious life.
- Jews -- Poland -- Łódź.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Forced labor.
- Jews -- Poland -- Bełchatów.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Men.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Mutual aid.
Places
- Siegmar-Schoenau (Germany : Concentration camp)
- Hohenstein-Ernstthal (Germany: Concentration camp)
- Łódź ghetto.
- Bełchatów ghetto.
- Freising (Germany)
- Sweden.
- Plzeň (Czech Republic)
- Łódź (Poland)
- Bełchatów (Poland)
- Prague (Czech Republic)
- Poland.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat