Henryk P. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Henryk P., who was born in Go?ra Kalwaria, Poland in 1916. He recounts his father's death when he was a baby; cordial relations with non-Jews; attending six years of Polish school; participating in Hapoel Hamizrachi; apprenticing as a tailor; working for a Catholic; military draft in November 1937; serving in an elite unit in Suwa?ki; becoming an officer; transfer to Raczki; German invasion; skirmishes in Cimochy and elsewhere; transfer to Hrodna; capture by Soviet troops in Shchuchyn in September; forced labor; release in December; returning home via Warsaw; forced labor assignments from the Judenrat; ghettoization; escaping to the Magnuszew ghetto; obtaining false papers from a priest with help from a Polish friend; transfer to a labor camp; escaping to Magnuszew in December 1943; learning his mother died in the Warsaw ghetto when visiting his brother and sister in G?owaczo?w (he never saw them again); being warned to leave; a poor woman hiding him in Podwierzbie, even from Narodowe Si?y Zbrojne, a Polish nationalist group (he had her recognized by Yad Vashem); liberation by Soviet troops; seeing the flames from the Warsaw uprising; believing he was one of the only Jews left; working for the Soviets in Pod?e?z?; returning to Go?ra Kalwaria in 1945 to join other survivors; and marriage. Mr. P. discusses Poles who hid Jews in Soko??ka; many Poles who risked their lives for Jews; the influence and escape of the Chasidic rebbe, Abraham Alter, from Go?ra Kalwaria; and Jewish pilgrimages there to this day.

5 videocassettes