Alfred K. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Alfred K., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1921, the youngest of three brothers. He recounts attending public school; antisemitic harassment; participating in socialist and Zionist organizations; Austrians welcoming the Germans during the Anschluss; one brother emigrating to relatives in the United States, the other, as a physician with a Kindertransport, to England; the concierge protecting him and his parents during Kristallnacht; fleeing with an aunt and uncle to Belgium; living in Antwerp; placement in Merksplas refugee camp; German invasion; fleeing to France; imprisonment as an enemy alien in Saint Cyprien; German invasion; escaping to Perpignan; living with a cousin in Limoges; moving to Paris; earning commissions bringing Germans to night clubs; obtaining false papers from a non-Jew; joining a Resistance group in Cluny; working as a courier; admitting he was a Jew to the Gestapo so they would not torture him for names of Resistants; incarceration in Drancy for two months; deportation to Auschwitz in October 1943; helping an older doctor en route; transfer to Buna/Monowitz; slave labor in the factory; public hangings; the doctor whom he had helped giving him extra soup every day, to which he attributes his survival; working with British POWs; a death march, then train transport to Dora/Nordhausen; slave labor hauling cement; a death march to Bergen-Belsen; liberation by British troops; shooting a German who harassed him; assistance from HIAS; returning to Antwerp, then Paris; recuperating in Salornay-sur-Guye; his brother, who was in the U.S. military, locating him; living with his cousin in Limoges; moving to Switzerland; joining his brothers in New York in 1947; marriage to a British woman in 1950; living in Baltimore; emigration to England in 1952; and the births of two daughters. Mr. K. discusses extreme fear and anxiety in concentration camps; thinking only of his own survival; and not sharing his experiences with his wife or children until recently.

3 videocassettes