Alter W. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Alter W., who was born in Chrzano?w, Poland in 1926. He recalls his family's affluence; his mother's death when he was four; his father's remarriage; antisemitic harassment; German invasion; fleeing east with his stepmother, older brother, and younger half-brother; returning home three months later (his father had disappeared in their absence); finding his father's corpse when it was exhumed from a mass grave; his older brother's deportation in 1941; his deportation to Blechhammer; meeting his brother there; slave labor; transfer to Brande; separation from his brother (he never saw him again); slave labor on the Reichsautobahn; transfer to Gross Masselwitz, Klettendorf, then Waldenburg; a German civilian worker bringing him extra food; contemplating suicide; liberation by Soviet troops in May 1945; recuperating in a sanatorium; returning home; learning three cousins from his family of 120 had survived; illegally traveling to Italy with assistance from the Jewish brigade; illegal emigration to Palestine; imprisonment by the British; military service in the 1948 war; marriage in 1952; the births of two sons; and emigration to the United States in 1960. Mr. W. discusses focusing only on food and survival in the camps, and his loneliness and isolation after the war.

2 videocassettes