Isidor M. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Isidor M., who was born in approximately 1916, the oldest of four children. He recounts living in Przytyk, Poland; his family's orthodoxy; working as a shoemaker in the family business; anti-Jewish violence in March 1936; German invasion in 1939; forced labor; forced relocation with his family to Radom; ghettoization; smuggling himself to a village; transfer to a city; escaping to the village with a friend; hiding with three cousins for three months; a Pole helping him return to Radom; joining his family; his father's death; slave labor in a nearby camp, then in Blizyn; being forced to dig a grave and witness an execution; transfer a year later to a camp near Krako?w, then to Mauthausen and Melk; slave labor; transfer to Ebensee; liberation by United States troops; assistance from the Red Cross; transfer to a sanatorium in Italy; traveling to Bari; learning his mother and sister were in Czechoslovakia; traveling to Rome, then Prague; learning his mother had left for Germany; traveling by train to join her; arrest by Soviets as a "collaborator"; imprisonment for four weeks with German POWs; escaping; joining a group organized for illegal immigration to Palestine; traveling with them to Budapest, then Salzburg; traveling by himself to join his mother and siblings in Feldafing displaced persons camp; marriage to a survivor in 1947; his daughter's birth; and emigration from Hamburg to the United States in 1949 with assistance from the Joint. Mr. M. discusses details of camp life; recently meeting a friend from the camps; and nightmares resulting from his experiences.
Extent and Medium
3 videocassettes
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
- M., Isidor, -- 1916?-
Corporate Bodies
- Melk (Concentration camp)
- Mauthausen (Concentration camp)
- Blizyn (Concentration camp)
- Ebensee (Concentration camp)
- Feldafing (Displaced persons camp)
- American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
- International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
Subjects
- Escapes.
- Nightmares.
- Refugee camps.
- Prisoners of war -- Soviet Union.
- Mutual aid.
- Hiding.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Video tapes.
- Men.
- Forced labor.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Jews -- Poland -- Radom (WojewoĚdztwo Mazowieckie)
- Postwar effects.
- Postwar experiences.
- Holocaust survivors.
Places
- Hamburg (Germany)
- Salzburg (Austria)
- Budapest (Hungary)
- Rome (Italy)
- Radom ghetto.
- Poland.
- Prague (Czech Republic)
- Bari (Italy)
- Radom (WojewoĚdztwo Mazowieckie, Poland)
- Przytyk (Poland)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat