Peter H. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Peter H., who was born in 1920 in Hannover, Germany. He recounts his parents' divorce; being raised by a Catholic governess; his bar mitzvah; anti-Jewish laws; expulsion from school in 1936; apprenticeship in a Jewish-owned chemical factory; the factory's expropriation; losing his job; studying chemistry privately in Berlin; working as a chemist; Kristallnacht;, obtaining visas with his mother and brother at the American Consulate in Hamburg; visiting relatives in Cologne and Amsterdam; emigration to the United States in 1939; learning his father had emigrated to Thailand; communicating with him via the Red Cross; receiving letters from his paternal grandmother (she committed suicide en route to Auschwitz); and marriage in 1944. Mr. H. discusses his strong sense of family; visiting his governess who had saved his maternal grandmother; a trip to Germany in 1964 with his wife and children; attending the dedication of a Holocaust memorial in Hannover in 1997; relatives who had perished and others who had escaped; and an extended family reunion in California in 1989. He shows photographs, a family history, and his mother's record of his childhood.
Extent and Medium
2 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
- H., Peter, -- 1920-
Corporate Bodies
- International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
Subjects
- Jews -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- Germany.
- Bar mitzvah.
- Jews -- Migration.
- Kristallnacht, 1938.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Refugees, Jewish.
- Men.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Nuremberg laws.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Crystal Night, 1938.
- Postwar experiences.
Places
- Cologne (Germany)
- Amsterdam (Netherlands)
- Hamburg (Germany)
- Berlin (Germany)
- Hannover (Germany)
- Germany.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat