Charles H. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Charles H., who was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany in 1920. He recounts his family's move to Vienna; the Anschluss; an uncle who had emigrated to the United States sending them emigration papers; moving to Prague so they could leave from a neutral country; German occupation; deportation to the Łódź ghetto in 1940; his father being "taken away"; transfer to Poznań, Auschwitz, then Myslowice (Fürstengrube) in January 1941; assignment to an I. G. Farben coal mine; a German supervisor allowing his group to rest and providing extra food; shootings of every tenth prisoner after escape attempts; transfer to Gleiwitz, then Dora/Nordhausen in 1945; taking the uniform of dead non-Jewish prisoner to improve his status; a prisoner underground contacting the British, resulting in bombings; a death march; an SS commander shooting himself in front of them in Güntersberge declaring his shame at being a German; liberation by United States troops; recuperation in a sanatorium; Soviet appointment as police chief in Güntersberge, then as culture minister in Harzgerode; receiving emigration papers for the U.S. from his uncle; transfer to Moscow to learn to be a communist; traveling to Paris; and emigration nine months later to the United States in 1949. Mr. H. discusses learning through the Red Cross that his mother and sister were killed; contact with the family of the German supervisor who helped him; and attributing his survival to "pure luck." He shows his camp uniform.

1 videocassette