Norbert S. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Norbert S., who was born in Bad Homburg, Germany in 1927, one of two brothers. He recounts beatings by a Nazi teacher in 1933, resulting in his parents transferring him and his brother to a Jewish school in Frankfurt am Main; their move to Frankfurt in 1936; increasing anti-Jewish restrictions; his father and uncle being arrested and deported to Buchenwald on Kristallnacht; seeing the synagogue burning while the fire department stood idle; his father's release four weeks later due to his status as a World War I veteran and his pledge to leave Germany within six months; his father's departure on the St. Louis (he landed in Holland and emigrated to the United States); his bar mitzvah in 1940; receiving affidavits from his father; several unsuccessful attempts to emigrate; a German officer suggesting his mother bribe him for plane tickets from Munich; flying from Stuttgart to Lisbon via Lyon and Barcelona; assistance from HIAS; and emigration to the United States in 1941. Mr. S. notes the deaths of uncles, aunts and cousins in the Holocaust, and his grandson's interest in his and his father's experiences. He shows documents, photographs, and stones he retrieved from the sites of two Frankfurt synagogues burned on Kristallnacht.

1 videocassette