David B. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of David B., who was born in Thessalonike?, Greece in 1915, one of six children. He recalls the vibrant Jewish community; working in a bank; joining the Greek army in April 1941; returning home in May after defeat by Germany; anti-Jewish laws; the Jewish community paying a huge ransom to free its men; ghettoization; declining to join the communist resistance; round-ups and deportations; hiding his mother and brother; their betrayal; joining them to provide protection; deportation to Auschwitz; separation from his family (he never saw them again); transfer to Golleschau; slave labor; return to Auschwitz ten months later; transfer to Majdanek; posing as a Greek Orthodox; transfer to P?a?szo?w, Weiliczka, Mauthausen, and Ebensee; liberation by United States troops in spring 1945; returning to Greece via Italy to seek surviving relatives, in spite of knowing they all had perished; marriage in 1946; the births of his children; and emigration to the United States in 1951. Mr. B. discusses his belief that he survived due to good luck and that more Jews could have survived in Thessalonike? if the Jewish leadership had not failed.
Extent and Medium
3 videocassettes (3/4" u-matic)
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
- B., David, -- 1915-
Corporate Bodies
- Majdanek (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Mauthausen (Concentration camp)
- Płászów (Concentration camp)
- Wieliczka (Concentration camp)
- Ebensee (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Postwar experiences.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Jews -- Greece -- Thessalonikē.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, Greek.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Video tapes.
- Men.
Places
- Golleschau (Poland : Concentration camp)
- Salonika ghetto.
- Thessalonikē (Greece)
- Greece.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat