Dov F. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Dov F. who was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1927, one of four children. He recalls his family's move to ?o?dz? when he was eight; his father and older brother fleeing when the Germans were approaching (his father never returned); his brother's return a few months later; his mother running his father's factory; her efforts to find his father's body and the subsequent burial; moving to Warsaw with his family to join his grandparents; ghettoization; starvation and extreme cold; attending synagogue with his grandfather on his bar mitzvah, but no festivities; his mother sending one brother out of the ghetto, then sending Mr. F. with smugglers to join relatives in Lublin in 1941; moving to Turobin to live with his father's sister; seeing his brother every day; a round-up and forced march to Krasnystaw via Z?o??kiewka where others joined them; train transport to Sobibo?r; sneaking into a group of tradesmen during a selection; slave labor digging ditches and in the forestry unit; frequent beatings; learning of the mass killings in gas chambers; his sense of complete isolation; planning his suicide; reassignment cutting the hair of arriving Jews prior to their gassings, then cleaning the Ukrainian guards' barracks; becoming part of a group, which resulted in reacquiring his will to live; assistance from many other prisoners when he was sick; public, sadistic executions of escapees; his obsession with planning a mass escape; formulating a plan after the arrival of Russian prisoners of war who had military experience; and acquiring weapons for the plan.

6 videocassettes