Simcha B. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Simcha B., who was born in Izbica, Poland in 1912, one of six children. He recalls attending public school; working in a pharmacy; serving in the Polish army; moving to Warsaw in 1938; German invasion; returning with his sister to Izbica; one brother fleeing to the Soviet zone; traveling to Volodymyr-Volynsʹkyĭ in the Soviet zone; returning to retrieve his sister; not being able to leave; forced labor cleaning roads; his father's deportation (he never saw him again); hiding during round-ups; his sisters' and mother's deportations; transfer to a labor camp for two months; returning home; deportation with his remaining family to Sobibór; volunteering as a pharmacist with his brother; assisting fellow prisoners; public execution of randomly chosen prisoners after escapes; poisoning a kapo who endangered their escape plans; acquiring and hiding weapons; mass shooting of men whose escape plan was discovered; arrival of a prisoner who was a Soviet officer; his organizing an escape; finding his brother after the escape (hundreds of the escapees were killed); hiding in a forest near Izbica, then with a Polish friend; leaving when warned that members of the AK were looking for them; hiding with another Polish friend; liberation by Soviet troops; return of his other brother from the Soviet Union; traveling to Zamość via Krasnystaw; marriage to a woman he met in Sobibór; arrest by the AK; release by Soviets; his son's birth; his wife, brother and sister-in-law traveling illegally to Germany; joining them; living in Berlin, then Heidenheim displaced persons camps; a visit by David Ben-Gurion; and emigration to Israel. Mr. B. describes life in Sobibór; the arrival of transports including killings on the unloading ramp; and participating in war crimes trials of Sobibór officials, including Gustav Wagner, Karl Frenzel, Franz Wolf, and Hubert Gomerski.

4 videocassettes