Michael S. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Michael S., who was born in Sosnowiec, Poland in 1934, one of two children. He recalls vacations in Zakopane; German invasion; fleeing to Kielce; returning home; public hangings of Jews; escaping deportation through a friend of the head of the Judenrat; ghettoization; hiding during round-ups; fearing separation from his parents; his mother hiding him in her workplace during the day; his mother approaching a Polish prostitute and asking her to find them a hiding place; hearing she had found them a place; escaping with his parents and sister with assistance from a German officer (they never learned his name); hiding with a Polish family in a dovecote in Dąbrowa Górnicza; paying them with jewelry and gold; suffering from cold and hunger; liberation by Soviet troops eighteen months later; returning to their home in Sosnowiec; attending school; their emigration to Israel in 1950, then later to the United States; and becoming a professor of economics. Mr. S. notes the importance of his mother's ingenuity and aggression to their survival, and continuing to assist their rescuers after the war. He shows photographs.
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
- S., Michael, -- 1934-
Subjects
- Child survivors.
- Brothers and sisters.
- Mothers and sons.
- Fathers and sons.
- Postwar experiences.
- Aid by non-Jews
- Hiding.
- Men.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Jews -- Poland -- Sosnowiec (Województwo Śląskie)
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
Places
- Kielce (Poland)
- Zakopane (Poland)
- Sosnowiec (Województwo Śląskie, Poland)
- Poland.
- Sosnowiec ghetto.
- Israel.
- Dąbrowa Górnicza (Poland)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat