Boris F. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Boris F., who was born in Petrograd, Soviet Union (presently Saint Petersburg, Russia) in 1923. He recounts his father's death; emigrating with his mother and brother to join relatives in Hamburg in approximately 1925; placement in a children's home; his bar mitzvah; expulsion from public school in 1934; attending a Jewish school; his brother's emigration to the Netherlands; visiting him in the Hague; expulsion from Germany with his mother in 1938; joining his brother; attending school in Charleroi; German invasion; living in Brussels; returning to Charleroi; arrest in March 1942; incarceration in Mons, St. Gilles, Aix-la-Chapelle, Cologne, and Frankfurt; transfer to Wu?rzburg; slave labor in a textile factory; sabotaging the products; the camp commander's efforts to keep them alive; the prisoners conducting classes for each other; a death march in April 1945; liberation by United States troops; assistance from the Red Cross; repatriation to Belgium; reunion with his brother (his mother had been killed); recuperating from tuberculosis in Leysin; marriage to a survivor; and returning to Brussels. Mr. F. notes his loneliness after liberation; reluctance to discuss his experiences, but sharing them with his daughter; continuing friendships with fellow survivors; and nightmares resulting from his experiences.
Extent and Medium
5 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., Boris, -- 1923-
Corporate Bodies
- International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
Subjects
- Survivor-child relations.
- Postwar effects.
- Postwar experiences.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Nightmares.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Men.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Jews -- Migrations.
- Jewish refugees.
- Bar mitzvah.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, German.
- Forced labor.
- Sabotage.
- Death marches.
Places
- Saint Petersburg (Russia)
- Soviet Union.
- WuĚrzburg (Germany : Concentration camp)
- Leysin (Switzerland)
- Frankfurt am Main (Germany)
- Cologne (Germany)
- Brussels (Belgium)
- Charleroi (Belgium)
- Hague (Netherlands)
- Hamburg (Germany)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat