Arthur P. Holocaust testimony

Identifier
HVT 3478
Language of Description
English
Level of Description
Collection
Source
EHRI Partner

Abstract

Videotape testimony of Arthur P., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1912, one of three children. He recounts his father's military service in World War I; attending a Jewish school; participating in leftist youth groups; apprenticing as a merchant in 1928; non-Jewish friends shunning him starting in 1933; his sister's emigration to Australia and his brother's to Holland, and later Palestine; working for a Jewish social welfare organization where he met Recha Freier, a founder of Youth Aliyah; escorting kindertransports to Denmark and Sweden; Kristallnacht; leading a hachsharah in Havelberg then Neuendorf; returning to Berlin; working with abused youth, then in a dye factory; round-up from the factory to Moabit prison (he never saw his parents again) in February 1943; deportation to Auschwitz; assignment to Buna/Monowitz; slave labor in the factory; public executions; meeting friends from hachsharah who obtained a privileged position for him as a typist; hiding friends during selections; friendship with Fred D., whose brother was publicly executed; working in the infirmary; a death march to Gleiwitz, then train transfer to Buchenwald; liberation by United States troops; returning to Berlin; working for Werner Hilpert, a non-Jewish, former Buchenwald prisoner; moving to Fulda; establishing Kibbutz Buchenwald in Geringshof; assistance from UNRRA; visiting friends in the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp; working with Beriḥah to assist Jews migrating to Palestine; his emigration to Israel in July 1948; one-year service during the Israeli-Arab War; marriage to a survivor; their son's birth; and testifying in the Frankfurt war crime trials. Mr. P. discusses the importance of friends and not facing reality to his survival; the camp hierarchy and relations between nationalities; and pervasive painful memories.

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.

Related Units of Description

  • Related material: Fred D. Holocaust testimony friend, Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Rules and Conventions

Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Process Info

  • compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies

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Genre

This description is derived directly from structured data provided to EHRI by a partner institution. This collection holding institution considers this description as an accurate reflection of the archival holdings to which it refers at the moment of data transfer.