Paul R. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Paul R., who was born in Nowy Sa?cz, Poland in 1920. He recalls apprenticeship to a tailor at age eleven; the family's move to Belgium in 1936; working as a tailor; poverty and unemployment; local prominence as a table tennis player; German invasion; table tennis matches with German officers; deportation to Dannes in 1942, then to Malines and Auschwitz; sadistic beatings; working as a tailor and in the Canada Kommando; emotional numbness including indifference to others; trading valuables found in clothes for food; witnessing SS put Zyklon B in gas chambers; punishments after Mala Zimetbaum's escape; transfer to Warsaw in June 1943 with non-Polish and Russian prisoners to clear rubble; receiving food from a Polish civilian co-worker; the death march and train transport to Dachau; transfer to Waldlager V; casualties from frequent Allied bombings; liberation from an evacuation train by the Red Cross; recuperating in Mannheim; returning to Brussels; reunion with his sister; and marriage in 1954. Mr. R. discusses many details of camp life and relations between prisoner groups.
Extent and Medium
4 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
- R., Paul, -- 1920-
Corporate Bodies
- Dachau (Concentration camp)
- International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
- MuĚhldorf (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
- Malines (Concentration camp)
- Konzentrationslager Warschau.
Subjects
- Holocaust survivors.
- Forced labor.
- Table tennis.
- Concentration camps -- Sociological aspects.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Men.
- Video tapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Mutual aid.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Death marches.
- Postwar experiences.
- Aid by non-Jews.
Places
- Poland.
- Nowy Sącz (Poland)
- Belgium.
- Brussels (Belgium)
- Mannheim (Germany)
- Dannes-Camiers (France : Concentration camp)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat