Harold R. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Harold R., who was born in Fürth, Germany in 1922, the older of two brothers. He recounts attending public school; his bar mitzvah; anti-Jewish laws resulting in his expulsion from school and his family's eviction from their apartment; attending a trade school in Frankfurt; destruction of the family business and his father's arrest on Kristallnacht; his father's return from Dachau three weeks later; futile efforts to emigrate; deportation with his family to Rīga in November 1941; slave labor on a farm with 500 others for two years; public hanging of a man for trading with locals; his arrest for trading; imprisonment in Rīga; transfer to Jungfernhof, then with his family to Kaiserwald, Dundangen, Libau, then Stutthof; separation from his mother (he never saw her again); transfer to Buchenwald in August 1944, then to Bochum, and back to Buchenwald; hospitalization; learning from his brother that he and their father would be evacuated (he never saw them again); liberation by United States troops; returning to Fürth; a visit from a friend who had emigrated and was in the U.S. military, and Henry Kissinger; and emigration in 1946 to join his aunt in the United States with assistance from HIAS. Mr. R. notes he has never returned to Germany and his admiration for the opportunities provided by the United States. He shows photographs and documents.
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
- Kissinger, Henry, -- 1923-
- R., Harold, -- 1922-2009.
Corporate Bodies
- Stutthof (Concentration camp)
- Dondangen (Concentration camp)
- Kaiserwald (Concentration camp)
- Jungfernhof (Concentration camp)
- HIAS (Agency)
- Buchenwald (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Men.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Crystal Night, 1938.
- Mutual aid.
- Hospitals in concentration camps.
- Postwar experiences.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, German.
- Concentration camp inmates -- Family relationships.
- Child survivors.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Brothers.
- Fathers and sons.
- Mothers and sons.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- Bar mitzvah.
- Kristallnacht, 1938.
- Forced labor.
Places
- Fürth (Bavaria, Germany)
- Germany.
- Bochum (Germany : Concentration camp)
- Libau (Latvia : Concentration camp)
- Rīga (Latvia)
- Frankfurt am Main (Germany)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat