Shmuel H. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Shmuel H., who was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1926, the sixth of seven children. He describes his large, extended family, half of which were assimilated, half orthodox; his family's focus on music and humor; wonderful Sabbath dinners; his father's death in 1934; resulting pressures on his immediate family, particularly financial; his mother taking in boarders and Jewish refugees; assistance from some uncles; participating in Mizrachi; his bar mitzvah in 1939; one brother's emigration to Palestine; believing they were safe despite the war; German invasion in May 1940; anti-Jewish restrictions, including expulsion from school; forced relocation to a smaller apartment; he and two friends shutting out reality through their music; writing poetry; forging documents to prevent his deportation; deportation with his mother and some siblings to Westerbork; weekly deportation trains; agricultural training for emigration to Palestine; his brother Itzhak informing him that his mother and sisters had been deported; the disjunction of cultural events and deportations in Westerbork; transfer with Itzhak and his wife to Bergen-Belsen with the group that had papers for Palestine; his depression due to starvation and slave labor; hospitalization for tuberculosis; return to the barracks; a friend giving him shoes, which saved his life; a Ukrainian guard giving him extra food; re-hospitalization; Itzhak's visits; and a former teacher giving him part of his rations.

22 videocassettes