Herman L. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Herman L., who was born in Thessalonike?, Greece in 1926. He recounts his family's long history in Salonika; Jewish life; German invasion in 1941; anti-Jewish restrictions; fleeing with his friends to Drama; their arrest attempting to cross the Turkish border; frequent torture during six months in a Gestapo jail in Belgrade; transfer by train to a Greek jail in Thessalonike? in March 1943; assistance from a Greek friend; deportation to Birkenau in August 1943; his assigned job carrying corpses; transfer to Warsaw after the ghetto revolt in August 1943; mass killings during a death march from Warsaw to Dachau in July 1944; a Sephardic rabbi blessing them before their transfer to Waldlager; sabotaging production of concrete blocks; and liberation by United States troops on April 29, 1944. Mr. L. describes returning to Salonika from Feldafing; marriage in 1946; his daughter's birth; being drafted into the Greek army in 1947; fighting in Albania; and antisemitic laws in postwar Greece. He reflects on the importance of friendship to his survival; complex relations between inmates from different countries; his Sephardic background; the disadvantage of speaking neither Polish nor German in the camps; and his attachment to a diary he found in the ruins of the Warsaw ghetto.
Extent and Medium
2 videocassettes (betacam sp)
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
- L., Herman, -- 1926-
Corporate Bodies
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
- Feldafing (Displaced persons camp)
- Waldlager V (Concentration camp)
- Dachau (Concentration camp)
- Konzentrationslager Warschau.
Subjects
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Antisemitism -- Postwar.
- Postwar experiences.
- Mass killings.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Men.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Concentration camp inmates -- Religious life.
- Concentration camps -- Sociological aspects.
- Forced labor.
- Death marches.
- Child survivors.
Places
- Belgrade (Serbia)
- ThessalonikeĚ (Greece)
- Greece.
- Drama (Greece)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat