Albert K. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Albert K., who was born in Forth, Germany in 1923, the youngest of three sons, one of whom was deaf. He recalls cordial relations with non-Jews until 1933; expulsion from school in 1936 due to anti-Jewish policies; attending a Jewish school in Nuremberg; his hearing brother's emigration to Argentina; moving to Nuremberg in 1938; destruction of Jewish property on Kristallnacht; assistance from non-Jewish friends; futile efforts to emigrate; internment with his family in Langwasser in November 1941; deportation to Jungfernhof in December; his mother hiding him when he was ill; secretly baking matzo; a mass killing including his parents in March 1942; transfer with his brother to the Ri?ga ghetto in 1943; clandestine services conducted by Rabbi Joseph Carlebach; public hangings; hospitalization in summer 1943; deportation with his brother to Auschwitz/Birkenau in November; hiding his brother's deafness; transfer to Buna/Monowitz; slave labor for I.G. Farben; his brother's selection for gassing in March 1944 while he (Albert) was hospitalized; assistance from British POWs and friends; a death march then train transport in open cars to Mauthausen, then Sachsenhausen in January 1945; Czechs throwing them food en route; slave labor in an airplane factory; liberation from a death march by United States troops in May 1945; living in Schwerin, Lu?beck, and the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp; assistance from UNRRA and the Joint; moving to Frankfurt; writing of his experiences in 1946; emigration to join relatives in the United States in February 1947; marriage; the births of two children; and a joyful reunion with his brother in 1969. He discusses permanent friendships made in camps; refusal to be separated from his deaf brother; non-survivor's lack of interest in his experiences; and pervasive painful memories. Mr. K. shows photographs and documents.

3 videocassettes