Sam N. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Sam N., who was born in Przemys?l, Poland in 1920. He recalls apprenticing as a plumber from 1935 to 1939; Soviet occupation; German invasion in 1941; working as a plumber for the Germans; ghettoization; mass killings; witnessing many incidents when Josef Schwammberger, the German in charge of the ghetto, beat and killed Jews; his parent's deportation during the ghetto's liquidation; witnessing the last round-ups and killings of people who were hiding; deportation to another town; meeting his father; transfer to Auschwitz, then Birkenau, where he was selected as a mechanic; and separation from his father (he never saw him again). Mr. N. relates terrible conditions of labor in many concentration camps; the importance of his plumbing and mechanical skills to his survival; transfer to Mauthausen; Allied bombings; transfer to Ebensee; liberation by the American troops; his emotional depression and that of many other former prisoners upon realizing the extent of their losses; traveling to Munich with assistance from the Jewish Brigade; fleeing from Munich to Italy with help from an American Jewish officer; marriage; the birth of his first son in 1945; and emigration to the United States in 1948. This testimony includes many detailed incidents of ghetto and camp life and an account of testifying against Schwammberger at a war crime trial.

3 videocassettes