Pawel K. Holocaust testimony

Identifier
HVT 3218
Language of Description
English
Level of Description
Collection
Source
EHRI Partner

Abstract

Videotape testimony of Pawel K., who was born in ?o?dz?, Poland in 1919, the youngest of four children. Mr. K. recalls attending a private school; his father's death in 1937; antisemitic harassment; participating in Betar; enlisting in the Polish military in 1939; German invasion; traveling to Warsaw; Polish surrender; brief incarceration as a POW; returning to ?o?dz?; one brother fleeing east; posing as a non-Jew to assist his mother and sister; joining his brother in Soviet-occupied Bia?ystok (he never saw his mother again); moving to Slonim; German invasion in June 1941; brief incarceration with Soviet prisoners of war; returning to Bia?ystok; learning of mass killings; joining an anti-fascist movement; ghettoization; obtaining false papers as a non-Jew; digging a bunker to install a clandestine radio; circulating a bulletin; escaping to join partisans in the forest in 1942; smuggling weapons to the ghetto; helping others escape; his brother and sister-in-law joining him; armed encounters with Germans; avoiding Armia Krajowa (they were killing Jews); saving escapees from deportation trains; absorption into a Soviet brigade in 1944; demobilization in Hrodna; returning to Bia?ystok; living in Lublin, then ?o?dz?; traveling to Vienna to bring cousins from Gusen; returning to school; earning his doctorate degree; working in a university history faculty; anti-Zionist criticism of his books in 1967; expulsion from the Communist Party; moving to Paris, then Israel; returning to Paris; and obtaining French citizenship. Mr. K. notes all his siblings survived, and the importance of being able to pass as a non-Jew to his survival.

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

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Genre

This description is derived directly from structured data provided to EHRI by a partner institution. This collection holding institution considers this description as an accurate reflection of the archival holdings to which it refers at the moment of data transfer.