William B. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of William B., who was born in Vilna, Poland in 1927. He recalls his immediate family's secularism; his mother's family's orthodoxy; his father's career as a military officer; attending Polish schools; antisemitic harassment; weekly Hebrew lessons; his father's departure when the war began and his return; brief Soviet occupation; Lithuanian independence; favorable conditions for his family; his father's reluctance to emigrate to the United States; spending a summer with relatives in Kaunas; exposure to Jewish life; Soviet occupation; his father's arrest and release; financial difficulties; German invasion; antisemitic regulations; ghettoization; working with his parents for the Luftwaffe which provided access to food and exemptions from round-ups; working in a machine shop (his father joined the ghetto police); his father's death; deportation with his mother to H.K.P. in September 1943; his escape in June 1944; returning to Vilna; visiting his mother disguised as a non-Jew (she was later killed); hiding with a Polish captain who had known his father; liberation by Soviet troops; traveling to ?o?dz?; moving to Prague and Munich; emigration to the United States; and marriage. Mr. B. notes his parentss' focus on education which served him well.

4 videocassettes