Edwin O. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Edwin O., who was born in Krako?w, Poland in 1918. He recalls his father's career as a physician; an assimilated lifestyle; attending medical school in 1936 under a Jewish quota; affinity for leftist organizations; street attacks on Jewish students; German invasion; briefly fleeing east; returning home; working in the Jewish hospital; obtaining food from non-Jewish friends; ghettoization; round-ups and deportations; transfer with his family to P?aszo?w; volunteering for transfer after two weeks; working with medical staff in Szebnie; deportation to Birkenau in November 1943; a friend from Krako?w arranging his assignment to the hospital; encountering his mother and sister (they were Schindler Jews) the night before he was transferred to Oranienburg in November 1944; transfer to Buchenwald, then Crawinkel; receiving extra food from Serbian POWs and a friend; a death march to Litome?r?ice; liberation in May; traveling home; reunion with his father, mother, and sister; resuming his studies; military service; two marriages; and his parents' and sister's emigration to Israel in the late 1950s. He discusses sharing his experiences with his sons; attributing his survival to luck; exacting revenge on German prisoners in 1945; meeting frequently with fellow survivors; recurring dreams; and continuing commitment to socialism.
Extent and Medium
5 videocassettes
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
- O., Edwin, -- 1918-
Corporate Bodies
- Szebnie (Concentration camp)
- Buchenwald (Concentration camp)
- Oranienburg (Concentration camp)
- Crawinkel (Concentration camp)
- Litoměřice (Concentration camp)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
- Płaszów (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Survivor-child relations.
- Postwar experiences.
- Mutual aid.
- Hospitals in concentration camps.
- Death marches.
- Revenge.
- Dreams.
- Postwar effects.
- Jews -- Poland -- Kraków.
- Mothers and sons.
- Brothers and sisters.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Men.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
Places
- Kraków ghetto.
- Łódź (Poland)
- Kraków (Poland)
- Poland.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat