Walter M. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Walter M., who was born in Spišská Nová Ves, Czechoslovakia in 1930, one of six brothers. He recounts posing as a non-Jew successfully due to his "Aryan" appearance; working for a German officer; obtaining food for his family; his father's arrest in 1944; seeking assistance from the officer; his positive response despite learning Walter M. was Jewish; taking food to his father; learning one of his brothers had died; his father's release for the mourning period; round-up with his parents; their transfer to a prison in Prešov, then deportation to Auschwitz three days later; many deaths en route; transfer to Fürstenberg/Ravensbrück; separation from his mother; placement in a youth barrack; slave labor in the shoe workshop and other assignments; considering volunteering for a medical procedure to receive extra bread (his father dissuaded him); seeing his female cousin arrive; attempting to speak to her; public execution of a man who killed a German while attempting escape; extra food on Christmas; transfer with other children to Sachsenhausen; Allied planes dropping pamphlets; receiving a Red Cross package; locating his father; liberation by Soviet troops; walking to Bernau; train transport to Poznań, then Katowice; living in a displaced persons camp; returning home via Lʹviv, and Košice; learning his family had been killed; his father's emigration to Palestine in 1946; and joining him in 1947. Mr. M. notes his father wrote a book about his experiences.
Extent and Medium
9 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. This testimony cannot be used for commercial purposes.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- M., Walter, -- 1930-
Corporate Bodies
- Ravensbrück (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
- Sachsenhausen (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Postwar experiences.
- Mutual aid.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, German.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- Fathers and sons.
- Forced labor.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Child survivors.
- Hiding.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Concentration camp inmates -- Family relationships.
- Refugee camps.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Men.
- Video tapes.
Places
- Katowice (Poland)
- Lʹviv (Ukraine)
- Bernau (Brandenburg, Germany)
- Poznań (Poland)
- Spišská Nová Ves (Slovakia)
- Prešov (Slovakia)
- Czechoslovakia.
- Košice (Slovakia)
- Fürstenberg (Germany : Concentration camp)
- Palestine -- Emigration and immigration.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat