Ze'ev G. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Ze'ev G., who was born in Kaunus, Lithuania in 1927, one of five children. He recounts his very close family, attending Jewish schools; his bar mitzvah; Soviet occupation; transfer to a public school; German invasion; briefly fleeing east with his parents and brothers (one sister fled to Russia, another to Vilnius); finding their home occupied upon return; moving to his grandfather's home (his grandfather had been killed); a non-Jewish neighbor bringing them food; ghettoization; his sister's return from Vilnius; his father's privileged position as a painter; working with his father; assistance from German soldiers; sabotaging the machinery in the factory where he worked; transfer to Kauen-Schanzen with his family; deportation to Stutthof one year later; separation from his mother and sister; transfer to another camp; his youngest brother's selection with a group of children; deciding to join him so he would not die alone; their deportation to Dachau; teaching the children to line up for roll call; train transfer with the children to Auschwitz/Birkenau; separation from the children; transfer to Lieberose, then Sachsenhausen; a German prisoner convincing the officers that he (Ze'ev) was not Jewish; assignment working with prisoners of war; transfer to a steel mill; Allied bombings destroying the facility, thus saving him from discovery as a Jew; returning to Sachsenhausen; a death march to Schwerin; assistance from the Red Cross; liberation; traveling to Suchań; working for the Soviets; learning his family was in Vilnius; joining them; learning his youngest brother was in Israel (he thought he was dead); becoming an engineer despite anti-Jewish restrictions; marriage in 1955; the births of two children; and emigration to Israel to join the rest of his family (his brother remained in Vilnius). Mr. G. discusses reunions of the surviving "children" he was with in Auschwitz/Birkenau and sings ghetto songs. He shows photographs.

8 videocassettes