Morris K. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Morris K., who was born in Kaunas, Lithuania in 1922. He recalls his father's successful business; entering college in 1940; Soviet occupation; German invasion in June 1941; anti-Jewish violence; ghettoization; mass killings, including some relatives; forced labor at a military airfield; participation in the underground; one brother being captured, assigned to disinter bodies from mass graves, escaping into the ghetto, and then to the partisans (he survived); transfer with his parents and another brother to Kauen-Schanzen; becoming friendly with his future wife; spontaneously having her escape while marching to a deportation train in summer 1944 (she survived in hiding); his own escape from the train; hiding for two weeks; encountering Soviet troops; returning to Kaunas; reunion with his future wife and brother; learning his mother had perished but his father and brother had survived; his father's return; marriage in 1945; oppression under the Soviets; illegally smuggling themselves to Germany; organizing a vocational school at Rosenheim displaced persons camp; assistance from the Joint; one daughter's birth; his wife's illnesses; completing school in Munich; and emigration to the United States in 1951. Mr. K. discusses his occasional traumatic memories and a recent visit to Lithuania with his wife, three daughters, and niece. He shows photographs.
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
- K., Morris, -- 1922-
Corporate Bodies
- Kauen-Schanzen (Concentration camp)
- American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
Subjects
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Jews -- Lithuania -- Kaunas.
- Jewish ghettos.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Jewish resistance -- Lithuania.
- Forced labor.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Men.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Postwar effects.
- Postwar experiences.
- Survivor-child relations.
- Refugee camps.
- Escapes.
- Mass killings.
- Soviet occupation.
Places
- Rosenheim (Germany : Refugee camp)
- Lithuania.
- Kaunas (Lithuania)
- Munich (Germany)
- Kovno ghetto.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat