William S. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of William S., who was born in Krako?w, Poland, one of three children. He recounts German invasion; fleeing east; receiving a gun from a Polish officer; arriving in L?viv; Soviets disarming him and sending them home; forced labor breaking rocks; ghettoization; clandestinely leaving the ghetto to smuggle food for his family; deportations including his parents, brother, and his girlfriend's family; marriage in the ghetto; transfer to P?aszo?w; separation from his wife and sister; visiting them; public executions; being beaten for defending a fellow prisoner; his wife's deportation; transfer to Auschwitz, then Rajsko; being used once for specious medical experiments; observing sadistic "experiments" on other prisoners; working as the prisoner-doctor's assistant, then in the garage; smuggling meat and bribing the kapo with it; sharing extra food with a cousin; transfer to Gross-Rosen; brief hospitalization; escape and capture, then escaping again; joining a transport to Buchenwald; liberation by United States troops; hospitalization; returning to Krako?w; reunion with his wife; traveling to Austria; living in a displaced persons camp; assistance from UNRRA; his son's birth; emigration to the United States in 1949; and the births of two more children.
Extent and Medium
2 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. This testimony cannot be used for commercial purposes without prior permission of the testimony donor.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- S., William, -- 1919?-
Corporate Bodies
- Płaszów (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.
- Gross-Rosen (Concentration camp)
- Buchenwald (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Brothers and sisters.
- Husband and wife.
- Human experimentation in medicine.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Forced labor.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Jews -- Poland -- Kraków.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Mutual aid.
- Marriage in Jewish ghettos.
- Postwar experiences.
- Hospitals in concentration camps.
- Escapes.
- Concentration camp inmates -- Family relationships.
- Soviet occupation.
- Refugee camps.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Men.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
Places
- Kraków ghetto.
- Rajsko (Concentration camp)
- Kraków (Poland)
- Lʹviv (Ukraine)
- Poland.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat