Yekutiel S. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Yekutiel S., who was born in Białystok, Poland in 1928, one of two children. He recalls a large, extended family; attending Jewish and Polish schools; participating in Hashomer Hatzair; his father's death in 1938; brief German invasion, then Soviet occupation; German occupation in June 1941; ghettoization; forced factory labor; smuggling food into the ghetto; hiding during round-ups; his sister being taken from work; round-up by Ukrainians; being beaten unconscious and, upon awakening, seeing his mother shot; deportation to Bliżyn; slave labor in a quarry; trading valuables he found with local Poles for food; sharing with his friend; public executions of escapees; transfer to Auschwitz/Birkenau, Sachsenhausen, Ohrdruf, then Peenemünde; slave labor in an underground rocket factory; sexual harassment by a German prisoner; Allied bombings leading to evacuation; a death march to Szczecin, Buchenwald, then Bergen-Belsen; liberation by British troops; obtaining food from houses in Celle; traveling east; draft into the Soviet army; deserting with several others; assistance from a woman in Bydgoszcz; returning home; finding his house occupied; living on two kibbutzim in Poland (Yitzhak Zuckerman was at one), then in Föhrenwald displaced persons camp; illegal emigration to Palestine by ship via Marseille in 1946; interdiction by the British; incarceration in ʻAtlit; release; serving in the Palmaḥ; losing a leg in the 1948 Israel-Arab War; marriage; and the births of two children. Mr. S. discusses visiting Auschwitz and Białystok five years ago with his wife.
Extent and Medium
2 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
People
- S., Yekutiel, -- 1928-
- Zuckerman, Yitzhak, -- 1915-1981.
Corporate Bodies
- Sachsenhausen (Concentration camp)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
- Buchenwald (Concentration camp)
- Ohrdruf (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- World Hashomer Hatzair.
- Blizyn (Concentration camp)
- Bergen-Belsen (Concentration camp)
- Palmaḥ.
- Föhrenwald (Displaced persons camp)
Subjects
- Forced labor.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Men.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Refugee camps.
- Draft -- Soviet Union.
- Sexual harassment.
- Death marches.
- Quarries and quarrying.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Jews -- Poland -- BiaŁystok.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Postwar experiences.
- Soviet occupation.
- Mutual aid.
- Israel-Arab War, 1948-1949.
- Child survivors.
Places
- ʻAtlit (Israel)
- Białystok ghetto.
- Marseille (France)
- Palestine -- Emigration and immigration.
- Celle (Germany)
- Bydgoszcz (Poland)
- Poland.
- Białystok (Poland)
- Szczecin (Poland : Concentration camp)
- Peenemünde (Germany : Concentration camp)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat