George S. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of George S., who was born in Vilna, Poland (presently Vilnius, Lithuania) in 1925. He recounts moving frequently due to his father's career in the Polish military; living in Kielce, then Warsaw; participating in Maccabi; attending public school; German invasion in 1939; no contact with his father; he and his mother remaining outside the ghetto, posing as non-Jews; his mother placing him in a boarding school for children of Polish military; observing her hiding Jews when he visited; imprisonment in Pawiak in 1943; refusing to divulge where his mother was (she had been betrayed by blackmailers and did not survive); deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; transfer a few months later to Mauthausen; slave labor in the quarry; remaining in the barrack when he gave up hope; being forced to return to work by others since he was endangering them; receiving a Red Cross package in spring 1944 after writing a form letter to his father; sharing the package with his supervisor, resulting in reassignment to easier factory work; encountering prisoners from other countries; liberation by United States troops in May 1945; others taking revenge on guards and kapos; hospitalization in Zurich; reunion with his father in Como, Italy; and their emigration to England.
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
- S., George, -- 1925-
Corporate Bodies
- Maccabi World Union.
- Pawiak (Prison)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Mauthausen (Concentration camp)
- International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
Subjects
- Forced labor.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, Czech.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Revenge.
- Concentration camps -- Sociological aspects.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Quarries and quarrying.
- Holocaust survivors.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Men.
- Video tapes.
- Child survivors.
- Hiding.
- Postwar experiences.
Places
- Zurich (Switzerland)
- Como (Italy)
- Poland.
- Vilnius (Lithuania)
- Kielce (Poland)
- Warsaw (Poland)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat