Jack K. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Jack K., who was born in Zakroczym, Poland in 1920, the oldest of three children. He recounts his family's poverty and orthodoxy; attending cheder and public school; antisemitic laws resulting in financial hardships; participating in Hashomer Hatzair; leaving school at fourteen due to his family's poverty; moving to Warsaw; living on the street until he found a job at a grocery store; enlisting in the Polish military in 1938; German invasion; being wounded and captured as a POW; release; finding his family in P?on?sk; smuggling food to his uncle in the Warsaw ghetto; ghettoization; forced labor; deportation with his family to Auschwitz in October 1942; separation from his parents and brother; transfer with his uncle to Jawischowitz; slave labor in a coal mine; a Polish supervisor giving him extra bread, which he shared with his uncle and to which he attributes his survival; public executions; a death march and train transfer to Buchenwald in January 1945; his uncle's murder; liberation by United States troops; traveling to Paris with French prisoners; assistance from the Red Cross; joining his aunt in Toulouse, then living with her in Paris; emigration to join an aunt in England in 1948; working in a coal mine; antisemitic harassment by British miners; marriage in 1949; establishing a business; and the births of two sons. Mr. K. notes that of his large, extended family in Poland, he is the only surivivor.
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
- K., Jack, -- 1920-
Corporate Bodies
- Jawischowitz (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- World Hashomer Hatzair.
- Buchenwald (Concentration camp)
- International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
Subjects
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, Polish.
- Prisoners of war -- Germany.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, Jewish.
- Men.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Death marches.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Concentration camp inmates -- Family relationships.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Jews -- Poland -- Płońsk.
- Jews -- Poland -- Warsaw.
- Forced labor.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Antisemitism -- Postwar.
- Postwar experiences.
- Mutual aid.
- Aid by non-Jews.
Places
- Warsaw (Poland)
- Zakroczym (Poland)
- Poland.
- Warsaw ghetto.
- Płońsk ghetto.
- Toulouse (France)
- Paris (France)
- Płońsk (Poland)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat