Gary B. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Gary B., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1924 to Polish e?migre?s. He recalls their affluence; summer visits to relatives in Poland; participating in Hashomer Hatzair, planning to emigrate to Palestine; transfer to a Jewish school in 1937 due to antisemitism; his bar mitzvah; his father's deportation to Poland in 1938; his father's brief return to liquidate their assets; his mother and siblings joining his father in Poland; his arrest on September 13, 1939; incarceration in Sachsenhausen; a barrack mate being beaten to death (he testified against one perpetrator in a war crime trial in Berlin); relations between prisoner groups; torture in solitary confinement when men in his work group attempted escape; their public hangings; transfer to Auschwitz in October 1942; assignment to agricultural work in Budy, which saved his life; a Jewish prisoner-doctor smuggling him medication when he had malaria; a death march in January 1945, then train transport to Gusen; liberation by United States troops; traveling to Brussels; three months recuperation in a sanitarium; assistance from HIAS; learning the diamond trade; and emigration to the United States in November 1947. Mr. B. notes not sharing his story with his children and his entire family being killed.
Extent and Medium
2 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., Gary, -- 1924-
Corporate Bodies
- HIAS (Agency)
- Sachsenhausen (Concentration camp)
- Gusen (Concentration camp)
- World Hashomer Hatzair.
Subjects
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Men.
- Forced labor.
- War crime trials -- Germany -- Berlin.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Concentration camps -- Sociological aspects.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Child survivors.
- Survivor-child relations.
- Death marches.
- Mutual aid.
- Postwar experiences.
Places
- Berlin (Germany)
- Budy (Poland : Concentration camp)
- Germany.
- Brussels (Belgium)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat