Max G. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Max G., who was born in Grenchen, Switzerland in 1920 to Polish immigrants. He recalls participating in Hashomer Hatzair; attending the 1939 Zionist Congress in Geneva as a pageboy; completing medical school in 1945; employment as a physician for UNRRA; assignment to a displaced persons camp for Poles; transfer to Bergen-Belsen in May 1946; gaining the trust of the residents who had difficult relations with the British and UNRRA administrators; working closely with the Jewish Committee and its head, Joseph Rosensaft; working with UNRRA and Joint medical staff and the dental technician school; meeting his future wife, a nurse who had been born in Germany and hidden in Belgium; marriage in Basel in 1947; their illegal emigration to Palestine via Marseille in April 1948; serving as a physician in the Arab-Israel War; being wounded; returning to Switzerland; his daughter's birth; emigration to the United States in 1950; military draft; serving two years in Frankfurt (his family accompanied him); and becoming a psychiatrist. Dr. G. details social and political life in the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp from the perspective of an "outsider."
Extent and Medium
1 videocassette
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
- G., Max, -- 1920-
- Rosensaft, Josef, -- 1911-1975.
Corporate Bodies
- DP-Camp Bergen-Belsen.
- World Hashomer Hatzair.
- American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
- United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.
Subjects
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Refugee camps.
- Israel-Arab War, 1948-1949.
- Postwar experiences.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Men.
Places
- Grenchen (Switzerland)
- Switzerland.
- Frankfurt am Main (Germany)
- United States -- Armed Forces -- Europe.
- Basel (Switzerland)
- Geneva (Switzerland)
- Marseille (France)
- Palestine -- Emigration and immigration.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat