Eliezer S. Holocaust testimony

Identifier
HVT 3782
Language of Description
English
Level of Description
Collection
Source
EHRI Partner

Abstract

Videotape testimony of Eliezer S., who was born in Bilki, Czechoslovakia, one of six children. He recounts his family's orthodoxy; attending cheder, then public school; participating in a Mizrachi youth group; attending yeshiva in Vynohradiv; Hungarian occupation; anti-Jewish restrictions; his father's draft into a slave labor battalion; his return; German invasion in spring 1944; deportation with his family to the Berehovo ghetto, then Auschwitz; separation from his mother and siblings (he never saw them again); a public hanging; transfer with his father to Buchenwald after thirteen days; meaningless slave labor; transfer to Gleina; working in a Braunkohle Benzin AG (Brabag) refinery; a Serb prisoner beating his father; sabotaging the Serb's machine for revenge; an uncle's arrival and assignment to the tailor shop (a privileged position); his uncle arranging his and his father's transfer there; assignment as the kapo's personal servant; kind treatment by the kapo; escaping with his father during the bombing of Dresden; returning to the camp; train evacuation; Allied bombings killing some prisoners; burying them; a death march to Theresienstadt; liberation by Soviet troops; returning home via Prague, Bratislava, and Budapest; joining an uncle in Košice; assisting in organizing illegal emigration to Palestine; his father's remarriage and emigration to the United States; working in Bratislava, then Vienna; emigration to Israel in 1950 via Paris and Marseille; marriage; and his daughter's birth. Mr. S. discusses praying and fasting on Yom Kippur in camps; his father assisting many other prisoners; and the importance of his father's support to his own survival. He shows photographs.

Extent and Medium

7 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

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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.