Albert D., Chai?m D., and Henri D. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of brothers Albert D., Chai?m D., and Henri D. who were born in Kozienice, Poland, in 1917, 1919, and 1923, respectively, to a family of five children. They recall their family's orthodoxy; participating in Betar; antisemitism in school; German invasion; briefly fleeing to a nearby village; hiding during round-ups for forced labor; ghettoization; Chai?m's and their father's transfer to work in Pionki; their father's return; Chai?m's marriage to Pola D.; Albert's and Henri's deportation to Pionki concentration camp (they never saw their parents and younger sister again); slave labor in a munitions factory; Pola's privileged position which provided them with extra food; trading with Polish workers; transfer to Auschwitz/Birkenau in summer 1944, then three days later to Buna/Monowitz with Pola's father and brother; slave labor for I. G. Farben; Pola's father's death in the hospital; secretly saying Kaddish for him; helping each other on the death march to Gleiwitz in January 1945; transport in open freight cars to Buchenwald; Czechs throwing them food from overpasses; clearing bombing rubble in Weimar; Chai?m's hospitalization; liberation by United States troops; transfer to France as orphans because Henri had registered as under eighteen; and Albert's marriage to Pola's sister Re?gine. They discuss details of prewar, ghetto, and camp life; their older sister's survival in hiding; the importance of remaining together to their survival; and their individual opinions on surviving due to luck, miracles, and the desire to see relatives. They show photographs, artifacts, and sing their mother's Yiddish songs.
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. This testimony cannot be used for commercial purposes.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- D., Henri, -- 1923-
- D., Chaïm, -- 1919-
- D., Albert, -- 1917-
Corporate Bodies
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Buchenwald (Concentration camp)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
- Interessengemeinschaft Farbenindustrie Aktiengesellschaft.
- Monowitz (Concentration camp)
- Pionki (Concentration camp)
- Betar.
Subjects
- Marriage in Jewish ghettos.
- Hiding.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Death marches.
- Concentration camp inmates -- Religious life.
- Husband and wife.
- Postwar experiences.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Mutual aid.
- Men.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Brothers.
- Concentration camp inmates -- Family relationships.
- Jews -- Poland -- Kozienice.
- Jews -- Poland -- Pionki.
- Forced labor.
- Jewish ghettos.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
Places
- Weimar (Thuringia, Germany)
- Kozienice (Poland)
- Kozienice ghetto.
- Gleiwitz (Poland : Concentration camp)
- Pionki ghetto.
- Poland.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat