Elias S. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Elias S., who was born in Petrova, Romania in 1930, the oldest of six children. He recounts the family move to Strîmtura; attending public school; Hungarian occupation; anti-Jewish restrictions; forced labor; German invasion in spring 1944; ghettoization in another town for a few weeks; deportation to Auschwitz; separation from his mother and younger siblings (he never saw them again); transfer with his father to Buchenwald a few days later; separation from his father when he was transferred to Dora, then Nordhausen; slave labor with his cousin constructing underground tunnels; a public hanging; privileged work in the kitchen; sharing "stolen" food with friends; unloading corpses from freight cars; train transfer to Bergen-Belsen; assistance from friends; liberation by British troops; prisoners killing German guards; hospitalization in Celle; transfer to Helsingborg via Lübeck; placement in an orphanage; learning his father had survived; emigration to the United States in 1948 with assistance from HIAS; military draft; and marriage in 1958. Mr. S. discusses not sharing his story, even with his children, until they were grown; and reunion with his father in Canada. He shows photographs, his only memory of his siblings.

1 videocassette