Samuel M. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Samuel M., who was born in Czernowitz, Romania (presently Chernivt︠s︡i, Ukraine) in 1930, the younger of two children. He recounts his family's orthodoxy; attending a private Jewish school from age six; antisemitic harassment en route to school; beginning violin lessons; Soviet occupation; studying violin at the conservatory; his father not allowing him to be sent to study in Moscow; German invasion in 1941; murders and rapes of Jews; ghettoization; his father refusing when his German friend offered to help them escape and hide them; deportation with his family in cattle cars to Mărculești; placement in homes of previously murdered Jews; a death march with his family to Obodivka, then Verkhovka; placement with many others in small houses; his father's death from typhus; resolving to fight for his life; sneaking to nearby fields at night to obtain food; some peasants giving him food; hearing in 1944 that children were being saved; walking with his mother and sister to Balta; separation from their mother; hiding; liberation by Soviet troops; a cousin, who was a Soviet soldier, visiting them; reunion with their mother in spring 1944; their return to Czernowitz; moving back into their apartment; about a year later, traveling to Lublin then Łódź; antisemitic harrassment; traveling to Prague; leaving after a few days; living in Föhrenwald displaced persons camp; attending high school; his sister's marriage; obtaining a violin and taking lessons; joining his father's brother in New York when he was nineteen; obtaining a scholarship to music school; and his career as a professional violinist. Mr. M. discusses encountering the friend who offered to hide them after the war; regrets that he did not see his father's grave or see his father's German friend again; and writing a book about his experiences.

1 videocassette