Harry B. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Harry B., who was born in Gorlice, Poland in 1929, one of five children. He recalls his family's affluence; German bombardment; escaping to Jas?o; his father and oldest brother boarding a train which left before the rest had boarded; returning home; ghettoziation; a Gestapo shooting his brother; a friend on the Judenrat convincing the Gestapo not to touch the rest of the family; deportation of all Jews in 1941; remaining behind to clear bodies (he never saw his mother or siblings again); transfer to P?aszo?w; a privileged position caring for the Kommandant and his family; sharing extra food; his bar mitzvah; a Ukrainian guard saving him from execution when Amon Goeth became Kommandant; public hangings and mass shootings; transfer to Skarz?ysko; slave labor in a munitions factory; transfer to Sulejow, then Cze?stochowa; slave labor in HASAG/Pelzery; transfer to Buchenwald, then Rehmsdorf in winter 1945; a death march to Theresienstadt; friends assisting when he was sick; liberation by Soviet troops; visiting Prague; registering to go to England; living in a group home in Windermere; close bonds with the other youths; learning his father and brother had survived in the Soviet Union; visiting relatives in London, then his father and brother in Germany; remaining in England (his father and brother emigrated to Israel); marriage, and raising a family. Mr. B. discusses his luck in surviving; sharing his story with his children; pervasive painful memories; and his sense that five year's experience was fifty.
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.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- B., Harry, -- 1920-
- Göth, Amon, -- 1908-1946.
Corporate Bodies
- Częstochowa (Concentration camp)
- Hugo Schneider Aktiengesellschaft.
- Skarżysko-Kamienna (Concentration camp)
- Theresienstadt (Concentration camp)
- Płaszów (Concentration camp)
- Buchenwald (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Jewish councils.
- Death marches.
- Forced labor.
- Mass killings.
- Postwar effects.
- Postwar experiences.
- Bar mitzvah.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Mutual aid.
- Child survivors.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Concentration camps -- Sociological aspects.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Jews -- Poland -- Gorlice.
- Concentration camp commandants.
- Holocaust survivors.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- Video tapes.
- Men.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
Places
- Prague (Czech Republic)
- Gorlice (Poland)
- Poland.
- Windermere (England)
- Jasło (Poland)
- Gorlice ghetto.
- Sulejów (Poland : Concentration camp)
- Rehmsdorf (Germany : Concentration camp)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat