Yeshayahu L. Holocaust testimony
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
- L., Yeshayahu, -- 1928-
Corporate Bodies
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
- Ebensee (Concentration camp)
- Mauthausen (Concentration camp)
- Melk (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Postwar experiences.
- Orphanages -- Italy.
- Death marches.
- Mutual aid.
- Child survivors.
- Forced labor.
- Fathers and sons.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Concentration camps -- Sociological aspects.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Jews -- Poland -- Ciechanów.
- Brothers.
- Bar mitzvah.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Men.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
Places
- ʻAtlit (Israel)
- Ciechanów ghetto.
- Mława (Poland)
- Warsaw (Poland)
- Poland.
- Ciechanów (Poland)
- Cervino (Italy)
- Palestine -- Emigration and immigration.
- Milan (Italy)
- Magenta (Italy)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat