Jacob B. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Jacob B., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1933. He describes his family's affluence; moving to his grandfather's house in Czernowitz before the Anschluss in 1938; Soviet occupation in 1939; German invasion; ghettoization; deportation to Transnistria; his grandfather's murder en route; remaining with his father (his mother was nearby); slave labor in a quarry; limited contact with his father; random executions; adults in the barracks teaching him a variety of subjects; constant fear; being smuggled out briefly by an uncle's friend in 1943; returning three months later; liberation by Soviet troops in 1944; reunion with his parents; their return to Czernowitz; their deportation by the Soviets as German POWs; forced labor in a coal mine; release a year later using false papers; traveling to Bucharest in April 1945; attending school; returning to Vienna in 1946; one antisemitic incident; and their emigration to the United States in 1951. Mr. B. discusses having no basis as a child to differentiate camp from normal life; relations between different Jewish nation groups; permanent eye damage resulting from malnutrition; valuing education above all else as a result of his experiences; and reluctance to share his story with his children.

2 videocassettes