Ben G. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Ben G., who was born in Piotrko?w Trybunalski, Poland in 1925. He recalls the vibrant Jewish community; membership in Hashomer Hatzair; antisemitic violence; the 1939 influx of German Jewish refugees; German invasion in September; fleeing east; returning home; ghettoization; anti-Jewish measures; attending a clandestine school; forced labor; deportations; exemption from deportation due to his job; his father's deportation; separation from his mother and siblings when the ghetto was liquidated; deportation to Cze?stochowa, then Buchenwald; transfer to Dora in January 1945; an assignment burning corpses; public hangings; transfer to Nordhausen in March; and escaping after an Allied bombing. Mr. G. describes liberation by United States troops; remaining in a displaced persons camp; learning three of his sisters had survived; their reunion; learning his mother had perished in Auschwitz; returning with his sisters to Piotrko?w; antisemitic violence; the four of them fleeing to ?o?dz?; joining a kibbutz; illegally traveling to Bratislava; abuse by Polish border guards at Nacpolsk; assisting others to illegally leave Poland; emigration to Israel in 1950; marriage; and emigration to the United States. Mr. G. discusses publishing a bulletin and editing a book about Piotrko?w. He shows photographs.
Extent and Medium
3 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
- G., Ben, -- 1925-
Corporate Bodies
- Buchenwald (Concentration camp)
- Nordhausen (Concentration camp)
- Częstochowa (Concentration camp)
- World Hashomer Hatzair.
- Dora (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Jews -- Poland -- Piotrków Trybunalski.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Escapes.
- Forced labor.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Child survivors.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Men.
- Video tapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Postwar experiences.
- Antisemitism -- Postwar.
- Refugee camps.
Places
- Piotrków ghetto.
- Nordhausen (Erfurt, Germany : Refugee camp)
- Bratislava (Slovakia)
- Israel.
- Łódź (Poland)
- Nacpolsk (Poland)
- Poland.
- Piotrków Trybunalski (Poland)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat