Shalom K. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Shalom K., who was born in Opoczno, Poland in 1918, an only child. He recounts two older siblings who died prior to his birth; moving to Łódź; his father's strong Zionism; attending a Yavneh school, then one conducted in Polish; participating in Bene ʻAḳiva; antisemitic harassment; singing in the synagogue and in performances by Itzhak Katzenelson's theater company; German invasion preventing his emigration to Palestine; fleeting east with his father; round-up with other Jews in Mszczonów; Germans killing Jews by randomly shooting into the crowd; their return to Łódź; a Polish neighbor hiding him during a German raid; having to move to the designated ghetto area; difficulty obtaining food; Bene ʻAḳiva meetings and their failed escape; organizing a kibbutz; teaching and living at an orphanage in Marysin; his father's severe beating; a round-up of all the children in 1942; moving in with his parents; Bene ʻAḳiva friends obtaining a privileged position for him in a bakery, then a kitchen; providing extra food to his parents; performing in a ghetto theater; working in a nail factory; hiding with his parents during an action; surrendering due to lack of food; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; separation from his parents; and a hand injury inflicted by a guard.
Extent and Medium
9 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
- K., Shalom, -- 1918-
Corporate Bodies
- Bene ʻAḳiva Lodz' (Organization)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
- Braunschweig (Concentration camp)
- Watenstedt (Concentration camp)
- Ravensbrück (Concentration camp)
- Wöbbelin (Concentration camp)
- International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
- DP-Camp Bergen-Belsen.
Subjects
- Cannibalism.
- War crime trials -- Germany.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Concentration camps -- Sociological aspects.
- Orphanages.
- Friendship.
- Forced labor.
- Jews -- Poland -- Łódź.
- Jewish ghettos.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Men.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Hiding.
- Postwar effects.
- Survivor-child relations.
- Mutual aid.
- Postwar experiences.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Israel-Arab War, 1948-1949.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Refugee camps.
- Nightmares.
Places
- Sweden.
- Łódź ghetto.
- Mszczonów (Poland)
- Lübeck (Germany)
- Opoczno (Poland)
- Łódź (Poland)
- Poland.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat