Ziggy S. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Ziggy S., who was born in Łódź, Poland in 1930. He recounts his parents' divorce; living with his paternal grandparents; attending a Jewish school; his father escaping east immediately prior to the German occupation; ghettoization in spring 1940; working in a metal factory; constant hunger; attempts to obtain extra food; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau in summer 1944; transfer a few weeks later to Stutthof; volunteering with friends in December when sixteen-year-olds were sought; transfer to Stolp; slave labor on a railway; his group of twenty Polish boys having difficulty with prisoners of other nationalities; improved food and heat; a public hanging; return to Stutthof in March 1945; placement on barges in April with no food or water; abandonment by the guards; Danish and Norwegian prisoners-of-war navigating the barges to land; recapture by Germans; his friends carrying him on the death march to Neustadt; liberation by British troops on May 3; becoming ill from eating; assistance from the Red Cross; a three-month hospitalization; transfer to Neustadt displaced persons camp, then a children's home with several of his camp friends; assistance from UNRRA; receiving a letter from his mother in January 1946; his friends persuading him to visit her in London; meeting her in December 1946; socializing with Jewish survivors, some of whom he had known, who became his lifelong friends; marriage; and the births of two daughters and five grandchildren. Mr. S. discusses the importance of friends and luck to his survival; always discussing their experiences when meeting with his survivor friends; and not sharing these experiences with his daughters.

2 videocassettes