Aron Z. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Aron Z., who was born in ?o?dz?, Poland in 1927, the youngest of seven children. He recalls his family's Hasidism; their butcher shops; antisemitic violence; visiting relatives in Radoszyce; summers in Ko?o; German invasion; his father's arrest; assistance from their German landlord to free him; being sent to relatives in Kielce and Mnio?w; walking home because he missed his mother; ghettoization; forced labor; occasionally driving H?ayim Rumkowski; deportations including siblings, nephews, and nieces; deportation with his brother and parents to Auschwitz/Birkenau in summer 1944; separation from his parents (he never saw them again); trying to help his nephew (he died); his brother protecting him; their transfer to Czecowice; a death march and train transfer to Buchenwald; his brother carrying him; transfer to Rehmsdorf; his brother's deterioration; his death during evacuation to Theresienstadt; liberation by Soviet troops; hospitalization; joining the first children's transport to England; good care in Windermere, then in a religious hostel; hospitalization for tuberculosis; marriage; raising two children; and building his business. Mr. Z. discusses prewar life; pervasive fear during the war; believing Rumkowski did the best he could under the circumstances; songs and singing in the ghetto; cannibalism by Soviet prisoners; not sharing his experiences with his children until recently; continuing close bonds with friends from camp and Windermere; and pain recalling these events.

4 videocassettes