Yasha'ayahu F. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Yasha'ayahu F., who was born in Białystok, Poland in 1927, the second of three children. He recalls his family's affluence; relatives moving to Palestine; attending a Zionist school; his father hiring guards to protect their business from Endecjas; German occupation in September 1939, followed by Soviet occupation; confiscation of the family business; German invasion in June 1941; a round-up that included his father (they never saw him again); ghettoization; smuggling food with friends; hiding during round-ups; non-Jewish friends helping him obtain extra food; separation with his brother from his mother and sister when the ghetto was liquidated in August 1943; deportation to Majdanek; sharing food with his brother; volunteering for transfer (his brother refused and he never saw him again); transfer to Bliżyn; slave labor in a clothing factory; a childhood friend assisting him; hospitalization for ten days; assignment to the kitchen, then as a carpenter; focusing solely on survival; transfer a year later to Birkenau; he and his friend fasting on Yom Kippur; their transfer four months later to Oranienburg, days later to Sachsenhausen, shortly to Ohrdruf, then a month later to Brandenburg; slave labor in a munitions factory; assistance from their civilian supervisor; another German civilian worker bringing them food; transfer to Ravensburg, then Ludwigslust; observing cannibalism; liberation by United States troops; living in the town with his friend and others; traveling to Białystok via Warsaw; moving to a kibbutz in Sosnowiec a month later; Beriḥah organizing their travel to displaced persons camps in Graz and Föhrenwald; illegal emigration to Palestine in January 1946 via Marseille; living on a kibbutz, then with his uncle's family; marriage; and the births of two daughters. Mr. F. discusses the importance of determination and being as unnoticed as possible to his survival; not sharing his experiences with his children; his younger daughter's six-year illness and death at age nine; and establishing a library in her memory. He reads the names of family members who were killed.

9 videocassettes