Vladimir S. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Vladimir S., who was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1937. He recounts his parents sending him to his maternal grandparents in a small town near Kaluszyn; running away with a Polish maid (his family was killed); his parents retrieving him; traveling with them, posing as non-Jews; vague memories of filth, lice, and overcrowding in what his mother told him was the Warsaw ghetto; his father's disappearance; escaping to the Aryan side with his mother in late 1942; a precise memory of his mother leaving him with a Polish policeman; placement in an orphanage run by nuns in Otwock; visits from his mother's friend; traumatic Allied bombardments which resulted in his stuttering; liberation by Soviet troops; retrieval by his mother; their brief return to Warsaw; moving to Munich; an uncle assisting them through the Joint; their move to France in 1947; and living in a children's home in Brunoy for a year due to health problems. He discusses his parents' influence resulting in his commitment to leftist causes and community involvement; estrangement from Judaism; and he and his wife (also a survivor) sharing their experiences with their 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.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- S., Vladimir, -- 1937-
Corporate Bodies
- American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
Subjects
- False papers.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Hiding.
- Postwar experiences.
- Postwar effects.
- Child survivors.
- Survivor-child relations.
- Jews -- Poland -- Warsaw.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Orphanages -- France.
- Orphanages -- Poland.
- Mothers and sons.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Men.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
Places
- Warsaw ghetto.
- Brunoy (France)
- Paris (France)
- Otwock (Poland)
- Munich (Germany)
- Poland.
- Warsaw (Poland)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat