Kurt W. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Kurt W., who was born in Wu?rzburg, Germany in 1920, raised in Weikersheim until 1922, then in Ostro?da. He recounts his family's orthodoxy; cordial relations with non-Jews; membership in Die Falken, the Social Democratic Party youth group; antisemitic harassment in school beginning in 1933; completing high school in 1935; moving to Breslau (Wroc?aw) for a masonry apprenticeship; his younger sister being sent on a kindertransport to the United States in 1937; his father's arrest in 1938, his release upon promising to emigrate; destruction on Kristallnacht, including burning of the synagogue he attended; moving to Berlin; his parents joining him; obtaining financial support and assistance from the Jewish Hilfsverein; obtaining visas for Uruguay in Turin; emigration with his parents to Montevideo in December 1938; joining a German anti-fascist group; emigrating to Houston, Texas in 1947; reunion with his sister; marriage to a German emigre?e; contacts with the local Communist Party; incurring his relatives' anger for joining strikers at his uncle's company where he was employed; his relatives alerting authorities resulting in his and his wife's deportation in 1951 for their Communist Party contacts; and settling in Hamburg. Mr. W. discusses ceasing to be orthodox after the war, and identifying as both a German and a Jew. He shows documents.

3 videocassettes