Joseph L. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Joseph L., who was born in Baranavichy, Belarus in 1935. He recalls Soviet occupation in 1939; German invasion in June 1941; ghettoization; the appointment of friends to the Judenrat; transfer of his father to Koldychevo as head physician; his mother's transfer there; remaining in the ghetto with his grandmother; round-ups; being brought to Koldychevo by his mother; his father's privileged position; contact with Fritz Jo?rn, the camp commander, who was executed after the war; witnessing gassings of prisoners, public hangings, and a mass killing; his father smuggling medicine to partisans with help from local farmers; escaping with his parents in 1943 with help from a German guard; his father serving as a physician to a partisan unit (his cousin was Tuvia Bielski); and liberation by Soviet troops in spring 1944. Mr. L. recounts traveling to Lublin; entering Majdanek shortly after its liberation; traveling to Rome via Prague, Budapest, and Arad; living there two years; emigration to Palestine in July 1947; the Arab-Israeli War; his father's death in 1956; and emigration to the United States in 1963. He discusses his surreal position in Koldychevo; the irony of being saved by Germans; becoming a physician; and the inability of Israelis to understand survivors.

2 videocassettes