Arthur R. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Arthur R., who was born in Derecske, Hungary in 1928, one of seven children. In a reflective and detailed testimony, he remembers centering their life on the synagogue, religious school, Sabbath, and Jewish holidays; increasing antisemitism in the mid-1930s; rescinding of Jewish business licenses, including his father's; increasing poverty; his father's draft into a Hungarian forced labor battalion; German occupation in 1944; ghettoization in Nagyva?rad (Oradea); deportation to Auschwitz; separation from his mother and younger brothers (they perished); pervasive hunger; maintaining contact with one brother and sister (they did not survive); selections; volunteering for transport thinking he could not survive in Auschwitz; transfer to Braunschweig; slave labor at a truck factory; help from his German supervisor; praying daily; the factory's destruction in Allied bombings; transfer to Watenstedt, Ravensbru?ck, and Woebbelin; liberation by United States troops; recovering at a military hospital, then in Helsingborg, Sweden; learning his father survived; and emigrating to the United States. Mr. R. discusses difficulties completing school with much younger students; reunion with his father; his marriage and children; recurring nightmares of leaving his home; and a disturbing visit to Germany. He shows photographs, documents, and artifacts.
Extent and Medium
4 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
- R., Arthur, -- 1928-
Corporate Bodies
- WoĚbbelin (Concentration camp)
- Watenstedt (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- RavensbruĚck (Concentration camp)
- Braunschweig (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Mutual aid.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Postwar experiences.
- Postwar effects.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Concentration camp inmates -- Religious life.
- Child survivors.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Oradea ghetto.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Men.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Jews -- Romania -- Oradea.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Nightmares.
- Forced labor.
- Brothers and sisters.
- Brothers.
Places
- Helsingborg (Sweden)
- Hungary.
- Derecske (Hungary)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat