Werner C. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Werner C., who was born in Essen, Germany in 1921. He recalls his parents' German patriotism; social barriers between German and "eastern" Jews; anti-Semitic incidents in school; expulsion in 1938; attending a Jewish school in Cologne; destruction of their home on Kristallnacht; imprisonment, then transfer to Dachau; help from a cousin; and release due to the intervention of a friend who was an influential Nazi and his promise to emigrate (his mother obtained a commitment from Erich Klibansky for Mr. C. to accompany a children's transport). He recalls studying in London; arranging his sister's emigration in August 1939; internment in Shropshire and the Isle of Man as an "enemy alien"; release because he was a student; German bombing attacks; providing emotional support for his sister; learning his parents had perished; working in Germany after the war; emigrating to the United States in 1946; and marriage to a survivor in 1951. Mr. C. discusses the psychological aspects of concentration camp life, of his parents' death, and of being a refugee; the emotional impact on his children; and becoming an observant Jew because of his wife. He shows family photographs.

3 videocassettes