Michel M. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Michel M., who was born in Wasilko?w, Poland in 1927. He describes an affluent childhood prior to 1933; increasing antisemitism; brief German invasion; Soviet occupation; assisting Jewish refugees from the German zone; German invasion in June 1941; hiding with his family in Zab?udo?w after being warned by his father's non-Jewish acquaintance of a mass killing; ghettoization in Bia?ystok; learning his father's arrest was imminent; their transfer to the Pruz?h?any ghetto in November 1941 to save his father; choosing not to escape in order to remain with his parents; deportation to Auschwitz in 1942; separation from his parents and sister; constructing crematoria and sorting clothing in Birkenau; one year of slave labor at I.G. Farben; Soviet POWs hiding him among them; transfer to Dora; continuing help from the Soviets; sadistic public hangings; transfer to Bergen-Belsen; and liberation by British troops. Mr. M. recounts returning to Bia?ystok; disappointment at continuing antisemitism; reunion with his sister in Czechoslovakia; traveling to Paris with Haganah; marriage to a survivor in 1949; and emigration to Canada. He discusses relations between national groups in the camps; his will to survive; continuing nightmares; and sharing his experiences with his children while teaching them to respect all people.

2 videocassettes