Jacques S. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Jacques S., who was born in Thessalonikē, Greece in 1913, one of four children. In addition to information in a previously cataloged testimony, Mr. S. recounts playing violin as a youth in a Maccabi orchestra; his Greek commander issuing him, his brother, and others false papers as non-Jews so they could safely return home from front-line military services when Greece was defeated; refusing offers from non-Jews to hide in order to remain with his pregnant wife; encounters with Nazi officials Dieter Wisliceny and Alois Brunner; playing the violin in the camp hospital on Sundays; his surgery in the hospital; avoiding selection with assistance from a hospital worker; assignment as an engineer to the Union factory; punishment for visiting his sister; arranging his younger sister's transfer to the Union factory; smuggling knives to the camp resistance; a death march and train transport to Mauthausen in January 1945; transfer to Gusen; liberation by United States troops in May; hospitalization; traveling to Paris; living in Villemomble, then Nice; reunion with his younger sister in Paris; learning their brother and sister had not survived; and emigration to Israel to join his son in the mid-1960s. Mr. S. discusses prisoners assisting each other in camps; attributing his will to survive to his desire to bear witness; and a book that documents his participation in the prisoner orchestra. He shows a document and plays the violin.
Extent and Medium
6 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
- Brunner, Alois, -- 1912-
- Wisliceny, Dieter, -- 1911-
- S., Jacques, -- 1913-
Corporate Bodies
- Gusen (Concentration camp)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
- Mauthausen (Concentration camp)
- Maccabi World Union.
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Men.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, Jewish.
- Jews -- Greece -- Thessalonikē.
- Jewish ghettos.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Death marches.
- Brothers and sisters.
- Forced labor.
- Brothers.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Concentration camps -- Songs and music.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, Greek.
- Postwar effects.
- Postwar experiences.
- Wife -- Death.
- Concentration camps -- Underground movements.
- Mutual aid.
- Hospitals in concentration camps.
- False papers.
Places
- Bordeaux (Aquitaine, France)
- Villemomble (France)
- Marseille (France)
- Paris (France)
- Greece.
- Thessalonikē (Greece)
- Nice (France)
- Salonika ghetto.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat