David R. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of David R., who was born in Krako?w, Poland in 1925, the youngest of thirteen children. He recalls antisemitic violence; two siblings emigrating to the United States; German invasion; his father obtaining false papers for him; obtaining food for his family; the family's move to Szyd?owiec; smuggling goods to the Krako?w ghetto; traveling to Warsaw; briefly staying in a monastery; a failed bribery attempt to obtain one brother's release from a labor camp; escaping the liquidation of Szyd?owiec (he never saw his family again); witnessing deportation trains; traveling to the Warsaw ghetto and many cities; begging and living on the streets; near exposure several times; a failed attempt to go to Germany as a Polish forced laborer; a non-Jewish woman helping him in Krako?w; arrest; imprisonment in Montelupich; a failed suicide attempt; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; slave labor clearing rubble in Warsaw; a death march to Kutno; train transport to Dachau; a friend obtaining extra food for him; liberation from an evacuation train by United States troops; beating and killing their guards; burning a German's house (he had refused him help); living in Feldafing displaced persons camp; contact with his U.S. siblings; and joining them in May 1946. Mr. R. notes continuing fears due to his experiences.
Extent and Medium
4 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
- R., David, -- 1925-
Corporate Bodies
- Montelupich (Prison)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Dachau (Concentration camp)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
- Konzentrationslager Warschau.
Subjects
- Mutual aid.
- Postwar experiences.
- Postwar effects.
- Refugee camps.
- Hiding.
- False papers.
- Child survivors.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, German.
- Jews -- Poland -- Warsaw.
- Jews -- Poland -- Kraków.
- Escapes.
- Revenge.
- Death marches.
- Forced labor.
- Suicide.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Men.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Monasteries.
- Family.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
Places
- Warsaw ghetto.
- Feldafing (Germany : Refugee camp)
- Poland.
- Kraków (Poland)
- Kutno (Poland)
- Kraków ghetto.
- Szydłowiec (Województwo Mazowieckie, Poland)
- Warsaw (Poland)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat