Rudy F. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Rudy F., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1921. He recalls many non-Jewish friends; antisemitism following the Anschluss; implementation of the Nuremberg laws; unsuccessful efforts to emigrate; joining a kibbutz to prepare for emigration to Palestine; Kristallnacht; arrest immediately after the war began; transfer to Buchenwald; slave labor; hospitalization; being saved by non-Jewish prisoners; apprenticeship as a bricklayer, which provided better rations; receiving mail from his family until August 1942; transfer to Auschwitz in October; assignment to Buna/Monowitz; working as a bricklayer; contact with British POWs; sabotaging work when he could; the death march in January 1945; train transport back to Buchenwald; friends he had previously known providing a privileged work assignment; liberation by United States troops in April; living in Salzburg, then Vienna; learning his parents and sister had been deported to Minsk (no one returned); receiving papers from relatives in the United States; living in Stuttgart displaced persons camp; emigration to the United States in 1947; and marriage to a friend he had known in Vienna. Mr. F. discusses relations between prisoner groups in the camps; the prisoner hierarchy; and recurring nightmares.
Extent and Medium
3 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.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- F., Rudy, -- 1921-
Corporate Bodies
- Monowitz (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Buchenwald (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Mutual aid.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Crystal Night, 1938.
- Postwar experiences.
- Postwar effects.
- Concentration camps -- Sociological aspects.
- Prisoners of war -- Poland.
- Sabotage.
- Death marches.
- Nightmares.
- Refugee camps.
- Nuremberg laws.
- Hospitals in concentration camps.
- Men.
- Video tapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Jews -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- Germany.
- Citizenship -- Germany.
- Forced labor.
- Kristallnacht, 1938.
- Holocaust survivors.
Places
- Austria.
- Stuttgart (Germany : Refugee camp)
- Austria -- History -- Anschluss, 1938.
- Salzburg (Austria)
- Vienna (Austria)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat