Yosef D. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Yosef D., who was born in Vel'ký Meder, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1923, one of four children. He recounts his father's service as a Hungarian officer; attending local public school, then gymnasium in Bratislava; Hungarian occupation; one sister's emigration to Palestine in 1939; studying at a technical school in Vitkovice; returning home; working for an uncle in Pápa until his business was forced to close; participating in Hashomer Hatzair; returning home; obtaining work in a factory in Budapest through Hashomer; his non-Jewish landlord warning him of a police search; returning home; felling trees with his brother and father; apprenticing with a carpenter for two years; draft into a Hungarian slave labor battalion; assignment to airport construction; transfer to work as a carpenter in Almásfüzitő; Allied bombings; organizing an escape with other Zionists; traveling to Budapest; helping produce false papers for rescue operations organized by Carl Lutz and Raoul Wallenberg; providing weapons training to underground members; liberation by Soviet troops; reunion with his sister who had survived in hiding; learning of the extermination camps and the murders of his brother and parents; locating Jewish children; bringing them to a home in Békéscsaba to prepare for emigration to Palestine; assistance from the Joint; transferring the children to Bucharest; emigration to Palestine; interdiction by the British; serving in the Haganah; marriage in 1948; and the births of two children.
Extent and Medium
6 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
- D., Yosef, -- 1923-
- Wallenberg, Raoul, -- 1912-1947.
- Lutz, Carl.
Corporate Bodies
- World Hashomer Hatzair.
- American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
- Haganah (Organization)
- International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
Subjects
- Holocaust survivors.
- Men.
- Video tapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Conscript labor -- Hungary.
- Forced labor.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Hungary.
- Escapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Jews -- Rescue.
- Israel-Arab War, 1948-1949.
- Hungarian occupation.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- False papers.
- Postwar experiences.
Places
- Czechoslovakia.
- Vel'ký Meder (Slovakia)
- Bratislava (Slovakia)
- Vítkovice (Ostrava, Czech Republic)
- Pápa (Hungary)
- Budapest (Hungary)
- Almásfüzitő (Hungary)
- Békéscsaba (Hungary)
- Bucharest (Romania)
- Palestine -- Emigration and immigration.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat