David B. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of David B., who was born in Mielec, Poland in 1921 and raised in Jarosław. He recalls antisemitic harassment in public school; emigration to Brussels at age nine; no discrimination; assisting German-Jewish refugees; German invasion; leaving for France with his parents and brother; living in Bordeaux; fleeing to Montpellier upon German arrival; moving to Agde; his father's return to Belgium and subsequent deportation in 1942 (they never saw him again); joining Mouvement des jeunesses sionistes; organizing escapes for Jews to the free zone; being warned of his own arrest; non-Jews assisting him to escape; hiding for two weeks; obtaining false papers from the Jewish scouts (E.I.F.); learning of his mother's death; he and his brother living in a scout home in Polignac; arrest; escaping from Septfonds; fleeing to Italian-occupied Nice; being joined by his brother; working with the Jewish underground in Saint-Martin-Vésubie and Valdieri; arrest in Toulouse; incarceration in Noé; escape with a prisoner who recognized him from Armée juive; working for the Jewish resistance in Limoges; burning a building in Glénic to destroy records of Jews; military forays against the Germans; arrest; confessing to be Jewish, hoping to avoid execution as a Resistant; days of torture; deportation to Buchenwald, Dora, and Rottleberode; slave labor; and liberation from a death march in May 1945.
Extent and Medium
4 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
- B., David, -- 1921-
Corporate Bodies
- Eclaireurs israélites de France.
- Mouvement des jeunesses sionistes (France)
- Dora (Concentration camp)
- Buchenwald (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Mutual aid.
- Italian occupation.
- Postwar effects.
- Postwar experiences.
- Concentration camps -- Sociological aspects.
- Death marches.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Forced labor.
- Brothers.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, German.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Jewish resistance.
- Escapes.
- Jews -- Migrations.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- France.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Refugees, Jewish.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Hiding.
- False papers.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Men.
Places
- Valdieri (Italy)
- Saint-Martin-Vésubie (France)
- Nice (France)
- Polignac (France)
- Montpellier (France)
- Agde (France)
- Bordeaux (Aquitaine, France)
- Brussels (Belgium)
- Jarosław (Poland)
- Mielec (Poland)
- Poland.
- Limoges (France)
- Toulouse (France)
- Septfonds (France : Concentration camp)
- Glénic (France)
- Rottleberode (Germany : Concentration camp)
- Noé (France : Concentration camp)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat