Menachem G. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Menachem G., who was born in Kzepice, Poland in 1914, one of five children. He recounts attending Jewish school in Częstochowa; working as a driver in his family's bus company; participating in Betar; antisemitic violence; military draft in 1937; German invasion in 1939; capture as a prisoner of war; incarceration in Żarki; transfer to Germany; separation of Jews from Poles; forced labor building a lake; receiving extra food for repairing vehicles; transfer to Lublin; the Jewish community obtaining the release of Jewish prisoners; returning home; incarceration in Gross Sarne for eight months; slave labor with Soviet POWs building roads; hospitalization in Sosnowiec when he was injured; returning to Kzepice; hiding his mother during a round-up; securing the release of his father and nephew; moving with his family to Sosnowiec; joining the Jewish resistance; serving in the Jewish police; ghettoization; his family's round-up and release; his parents' deaths; obtaining false papers; hiding in a bunker when the ghetto was liquidated in August 1943; escaping with others; hiding briefly with a non-Jewish friend; traveling to Katowice, then Opole; posing as a non-Jew and working as an auto mechanic; visiting Jews in Zdzieszowice; joining Armia Ludowa the Polish, the Polish underground; joining his future wife in Katowice in February, 1945; liberation by Soviet troops; traveling to Częstochowa, then Sosnowiec; learning a niece was the only other family survivor; working for a year in Warsaw, then in Katowice, still living as a non-Jew; and emigration to Israel in 1948. He shows documents.
Extent and Medium
4 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
- G., Menachem, -- 1914-
Corporate Bodies
- Betar.
- Poland. -- Armia Ludowa.
Subjects
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Poland.
- Jews -- Poland -- Sosnowiec (Województwo Śląskie)
- Jewish ghettos.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Jewish resistance.
- Escapes.
- Forced labor.
- Prisoners of war -- Soviet Union.
- Prisoners of war -- Germany.
- Prisoners of war -- Poland.
- Draft -- Poland.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, Jewish.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, Polish.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Men.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Postwar experiences
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Bunkers.
- Hiding.
- False papers.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
Places
- Zdzieszowice (Poland)
- Opole (Poland)
- Katowice (Poland)
- Sosnowiec (Województwo Śląskie, Poland)
- Lublin (Poland)
- Żarki (Poland)
- Częstochowa (Poland)
- Krzepice (Poland)
- Russia.
- Gross Sarne (Poland : Concentration camp)
- Sosnowiec ghetto.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat