Judah V. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Judah V., who was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1925. He recalls attending a Jewish school; antisemitic harassment; apprenticing to a milliner; German invasion; frequent round-ups; his father's exemption due to his job; his father hiding him and his sister during a round-up in spring 1943 (they were not covered by the exemption); his parents and two younger siblings being taken despite the exemption; posing as staff of the Jewish council to see his family in the Schouwberg (the theater used to hold Jews in Amsterdam prior to their deportation); his father's instructions to care for his sister; giving himself up to join her when she was taken; deportation to Westerbork, then Vught; return to Westerbork; transport to Auschwitz; assignment to the Sonderkommando sorting clothing; having to pull bodies from the gas chamber a few times; volunteering to be a boxer; transfer to Monowitz; boxing to entertain the Germans; receiving extra food; making bricks after he stopped boxing; beatings which resulted in permanent injuries; working with Italian civilians; scrounging cigarette butts from English POWs to trade for food; transfers and death marches to Gleiwitz, Dachau, Crawinkel, Oberhausen, and Buchenwald; liberation by American and Canadian troops; treatment by the Red Cross; transfer to Holland; hospitalization for tuberculosis; reunion with his aunt; emigration to England in 1950; marriage; and raising three children. He discusses receiving compensation; sharing his story with his children; and losing his religious beliefs in camp, but recovering them due to his children. He shows photographs and his camp trousers.

3 videocassettes