Shraga P. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Shraga P., who was born in Łódź, Poland in 1924, the second of four children. He recounts a sister's death in 1934; attending public school; his father's death; participating in Hashomer Hatzair; working at the family store in Kolumna; attending Hashomer camps; German invasion; random forced labor; ghettoization; his grandfather's death days later; joining a hachshara with his older brother in Marysin; starving people from the ghetto taking their crops; returning to the ghetto in January 1941; clandestine Hashomer meetings; being assigned to work in a public kitchen enabling him to give his rations to his mother and siblings; reassignment to to a nursing home until spring 1942, then to a factory kitchen; his mother's deportation; remaining with his brother and sister; hiding Zionist youth groups members who had been listed for deportation; arrest by Jewish police in summer 1944; his brother arranging his release; working in a factory kitchen; a speech by Ḥayim Rumkowski, Jewish head of the ghetto, in his workplace; round-up with his siblings; escaping; hiding for a month with a friend in the evacuated ghetto; sneaking into the group clearing the remains of the ghetto; interrogation and beating by Kommandant Hans Biebow; being assigned to clean septic tanks, then clearing the former ghetto; escaping with five others during the Soviet bombardment in January 1945; liberation by Soviet troops; election as the Zionist representative to the Jewish Council; and organizing a Hashomer congress in 1946. He shows photographs and documents.
Extent and Medium
15 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
- P., Shraga, -- 1924-
- Rumkowski, Mordecai Ḥayim.
- Biebow, Hans, -- 1902-1947.
Corporate Bodies
- World Hashomer Hatzair.
Subjects
- Holocaust survivors.
- Men.
- Video tapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Forced labor.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Jews -- Poland -- Łódź.
- Jewish councils.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Poland.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Jewish resistance -- Poland.
- Escapes.
- Child survivors.
- Hiding.
- Mutual aid.
- Postwar experiences.
Places
- Poland.
- Łódź (Poland)
- Kolumna (Łask, Poland)
- Łódź ghetto.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat