William B. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of William B., who was born in Vilna, Poland in 1927. He recalls his immediate family's secularism; his mother's family's orthodoxy; his father's career as a military officer; attending Polish schools; antisemitic harassment; weekly Hebrew lessons; his father's departure when the war began and his return; brief Soviet occupation; Lithuanian independence; favorable conditions for his family; his father's reluctance to emigrate to the United States; spending a summer with relatives in Kaunas; exposure to Jewish life; Soviet occupation; his father's arrest and release; financial difficulties; German invasion; antisemitic regulations; ghettoization; working with his parents for the Luftwaffe which provided access to food and exemptions from round-ups; working in a machine shop (his father joined the ghetto police); his father's death; deportation with his mother to H.K.P. in September 1943; his escape in June 1944; returning to Vilna; visiting his mother disguised as a non-Jew (she was later killed); hiding with a Polish captain who had known his father; liberation by Soviet troops; traveling to ?o?dz?; moving to Prague and Munich; emigration to the United States; and marriage. Mr. B. notes his parentss' focus on education which served him well.
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
- B., William, -- 1927-
Corporate Bodies
- H.K.P. (Concentration camp : Vilnius, Lithuania)
Subjects
- Postwar experiences.
- Forced labor.
- Escapes.
- Mothers and sons.
- Child survivors.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Soviet occupation.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Hiding.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Men.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Jews -- Lithuania -- Vilnius.
Places
- Vilna ghetto.
- Munich (Germany)
- Prague (Czech Republic)
- Łódź (Poland)
- Kaunas (Lithuania)
- Poland.
- Vilna (Poland)
- Vilnius (Lithuania)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat