Leon G. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Leon G., who was born in Turka, Poland (now Ukraine) in 1923. He describes his family's farm; antisemitic harassment by other children; brief German invasion; Soviet occupation; confiscation of most of the family farm; obtaining a government job; altering his father's documents to prevent his deportation to Siberia as a capitalist; German invasion in 1941; being beaten by a former Ukrainian friend; working as a beekeeper; arrest by the Ukrainian police; ghettoization in Sambor; his mother's deportation (she did not survive); a mass killing at the cemetery; brief imprisonment; his release (his father, brother, and sister remained and were shot); hiding with his older brother during the ghetto's liquidation; leaving the hiding place; their arrest and escape; help from farmers in Yablon?ka; hiding in the forests; joining Soviet partisans; sustaining severe wounds; transfer to Kiev for convalescence; returning briefly to Sambor; returning to Poland; finding his brother in Zamos?c? (he had lost a leg); living in Gliwice; smuggling themselves to Germany; living at Fo?hrenwald displaced persons camp and emigrating to the United States in 1949. Mr. G. recounts working; attending night school; his marriage and children; and establishing a business. He shows photographs.
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
- G., Leon, -- 1923-
Corporate Bodies
- Föhrenwald (Displaced persons camp)
Subjects
- Partisans.
- Forests.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Resistance.
- Soviet occupation.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Hiding.
- Mass killings.
- Brothers.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Refugee camps.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Soviet Union.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Jews -- Ukraine -- Sambir.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Mutual aid.
- Postwar experiences.
- Video tapes.
- Men.
- Holocaust survivors.
Places
- Kiev (Ukraine)
- Gliwice (Poland)
- Sambor ghetto.
- Turka (Lʹivsʹka oblastʹ, Ukraine)
- Sambir (Sambirsʹkyʹĭ raĭon, Ukraine)
- Zamość (Poland)
- Yablonʹka (Ukraine)
- Poland.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat