Lev A. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Lev A., who was born in Mo?nchengladbach, Germany in approximately 1910. He recounts his family moving to Jelgava (his father's hometown); evacuation by the Russians to Voronezh during World War I; cello lessons; his father's arrest during the Soviet Revolution; his return a year later; anti-Jewish violence; moving to Ri?ga; attending law school in Berlin; playing in a quartet; pursuing a career as a cellist in Paris; performing in many European cities; returning to Ri?ga in 1933; becoming the principal cellist with the Liepa?ja Philharmonic; Soviet occupation; German invasion; ghettoization with his family in Ri?ga; forced factory labor; his parents' disappearance (he never saw them again); transfer by boat to Stutthof via Gdan?sk; slave labor hauling wood and loading coal; memorizing pieces of music; encountering his sister once (she did not survive); volunteering as a welder; transfer to a shipyard; the German foreman giving him extra food, despite the fact that he knew he was not a welder; an Italian POW teaching him to weld; brief hospitalization (his foreman sent medicine); a very brief transfer to Buchenwald, then back to the shipyard; transfer to Lauenburg; liberation by Soviet troops; incarceration for a year in a Soviet prison camp as a spy; escaping; living in a displaced persons camp; and emigration to the United States. Mr. A. notes writing songs in concentration and displaced persons camps; becoming numb to death helping him survive; and his postwar career as a cellist with the Dallas Symphony. He sings a song from Stutthof.

2 videocassettes