Aleksandr O. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Aleksandr O., who was born in Kopaygorod, Ukraine in 1933. He recalls his family's orthodoxy; a family chuppah; celebrating holidays at home; German invasion in 1941; his father being beaten and forced to work; administration by Romanians; ghettoization; Ukrainian women trading food for their possessions at the fence; arrival of Romanian Jews from other cities; frequent deportations; hiding his grandmother in their basement (she died there in 1942); starvation; a typhus epidemic; becoming more hopeful after the Soviet victory at Stalingrad; liberation by Soviet troops in March 1944; his father and brother serving in the Soviet military; resuming schooling; his father's return in 1945 and his brother's in 1947; and emigration to the United States in 1990 with his father-in-law, wife, and two children. Mr. O. discusses studying in the ghetto (he learned English, Russian and mathematics) and all his family members marrying under their chuppah. He plays an audiotape recorded in 1965 of his mother singing Hebrew songs and shows photographs.

1 videocassette