Victor B. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Victor B., who was born in Re?zekne, Russia (presently Latvia) in 1915. He describes his assimilated family; his and his older brother's communist militancy; his secular "bar mitzvah"; arrest in 1936 for political activities; eight months imprisonment in Ri?ga; illegally traveling to Paris using false papers; completing law school; enlisting in the Foreign Legion in September 1939; being stationed in Le Barcares in 1940; attending officer training school; demobilization in Aix-en-Provence; living there, then in Marseille; forming a business as a front for Resistance activities; arrest in early 1944; two months imprisonment in Marseille; transfer to Drancy, Auschwitz/Birkenau, then a day later to Jawischowitz; slave labor in coal mines; receiving extra food from Polish civilian workers; a death march and train transfer to Buchenwald in January 1945; slave labor digging tunnels; another death march; liberation by French troops; hospitalization; and repatriation to Marseille. Mr. B. discusses arrival at Auschwitz/Birkenau as falling into another world that cannot be described; the camp hierarchy; focusing on food to the exclusion of all else; his priority to just survive one more day; feeling his experiences happened to someone else; his brother's "disappearance" during Soviet purges in the mid-1930s; a last letter from his parents; and sharing his story with his children and grandchildren. He shows photographs and documments.
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., Victor, -- 1915-
Corporate Bodies
- Jawischowitz (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Buchenwald (Concentration camp)
- Drancy (Concentration camp)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Postwar experiences.
- Postwar effects.
- Forced labor.
- Death marches.
- False papers.
- Resistance.
- Concentration camps -- Sociological aspects.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, French.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- France.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, Jewish.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, French.
- Refugees, Jewish.
- Jews -- Migrations.
- Bar mitzvah.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Men.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
Places
- Aix-en-Provence (France)
- Marseille (France)
- Rēzekne (Latvia)
- Rīga (Latvia)
- Paris (France)
- Le Barcares (France)
- Russia.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat