Judah V. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Judah V., who was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1925. He recalls attending a Jewish school; antisemitic harassment; apprenticing to a milliner; German invasion; frequent round-ups; his father's exemption due to his job; his father hiding him and his sister during a round-up in spring 1943 (they were not covered by the exemption); his parents and two younger siblings being taken despite the exemption; posing as staff of the Jewish council to see his family in the Schouwberg (the theater used to hold Jews in Amsterdam prior to their deportation); his father's instructions to care for his sister; giving himself up to join her when she was taken; deportation to Westerbork, then Vught; return to Westerbork; transport to Auschwitz; assignment to the Sonderkommando sorting clothing; having to pull bodies from the gas chamber a few times; volunteering to be a boxer; transfer to Monowitz; boxing to entertain the Germans; receiving extra food; making bricks after he stopped boxing; beatings which resulted in permanent injuries; working with Italian civilians; scrounging cigarette butts from English POWs to trade for food; transfers and death marches to Gleiwitz, Dachau, Crawinkel, Oberhausen, and Buchenwald; liberation by American and Canadian troops; treatment by the Red Cross; transfer to Holland; hospitalization for tuberculosis; reunion with his aunt; emigration to England in 1950; marriage; and raising three children. He discusses receiving compensation; sharing his story with his children; and losing his religious beliefs in camp, but recovering them due to his children. He shows photographs and his camp trousers.
Extent and Medium
3 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. Any commercial use of this testimony requires further authorization.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- V., Judah, -- 1925-
Corporate Bodies
- Westerbork (Concentration camp)
- Vught (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Monowitz (Concentration camp)
- Dachau (Concentration camp)
- International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
- Buchenwald (Concentration camp)
- Crawinkel (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Brothers and sisters.
- Men.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Concentration camps -- Sociological aspects.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Forced labor.
- Boxing -- Poland -- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Postwar effects.
- Survivor-child relations.
- Sonderkommandos.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Death marches.
- Prisoners of war -- Poland.
- Hiding.
- Faith.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Mutual aid.
Places
- Amsterdam (Netherlands)
- Postwar experiences.
- Netherlands.
- Oberhausen (Germany : Concentration camp)
- Gleiwitz (Poland : Concentration camp)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat