Yeshayahu L. Holocaust testimony

Identifier
HVT 4158
Language of Description
English
Level of Description
Collection
Source
EHRI Partner

Abstract

Videotape testimony of Yeshayahu L., who was born in Ciechanów, Poland in 1928, one of six children. He recounts his family's poverty; attending public school; many relatives emigrating to Palestine; visiting family in Mława; brief hospitalization in Warsaw; antisemitic harassment; German invasion; his father and two brothers fleeing east; their return; one brother's successful flight to the Soviet Union; ghettoization; public executions; his bar mitzvah; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; separation from his family; useless slave labor; a supervisor giving him extra food and an easier work assignment; seeing his father at night (he was later selected); becoming an electrician assistant; visits with his brother; his prisoner group trading with civilian workers; assignment as a German officer's servant; the death march to Mauthausen; transfer to Melk three weeks later; slave labor underground; transfer to Ebensee; abandonment by German guards; liberation by United States troops; being moved to an orphanage in Milan by the Jewish Brigade; living with his group in Magenta and Cervino; illegal emigration by ship to Palestine in 1945; interdiction by the British; incarceration in ʻAtlit; release; reunion with his two surviving brothers; marriage; and the births of five children. Mr. L. discusses relations between prisoner groups; and his fear, humiliation, and loss of hope in concentration camps. He shows photographs.

Extent and Medium

8 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

Corporate Bodies

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Places

Genre

This description is derived directly from structured data provided to EHRI by a partner institution. This collection holding institution considers this description as an accurate reflection of the archival holdings to which it refers at the moment of data transfer.