Elimelech S. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Elimelech S., who was born in Żuromin, Poland in 1919. He recounts his father's death before his birth; his mother's remarriage; attending public school, cheder, then a technical school; antisemitic harassment; working in Warsaw beginning in 1938; German invasion in September 1939; returning home; deportation from Sierpc to Pomiechówek, then Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki in November; escaping; joining his family in Warsaw; retrieving money in Żuromin; selling belongings in Mława; returning to Warsaw; ghettoization; posing as a Polish smuggler to escape; smuggling food to his family from Chotomów; traveling to the Mława ghetto; learning his stepfather, older sister, and mother had died of starvation; public hangings and a mass killing; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau in November 1941; assignment to masonry school; obtaining matzo from friends for Passover; transfer to the greenhouses in Rajsko; brief hospitalization; a death march, then train transport in January 1945; assisting his cousin Abraham D., who had been wounded in the Sonderkommando uprising; jumping from the train; hiding with locals in Nový Bohumín; liberation by Soviet troops; traveling from Katowice to Warsaw, then with non-Jews to Mława; leaving them after learning they were in Armia Krajowa, smuggling weapons to attack Jews; assistance from the Red Cross; briefly returning to Żuromin; staying in Gdańsk, Berlin, Magdeburg, and Marburg; illegal emigration to Palestine via Paris, where he met David Ben-Gurion, then Marseille; marriage; and the births of a son and daughter. Mr. S. discusses relations between national groups in camps; attributing his survival to his impoverished youth; testifying against Thies Christophersen, an SS officer in Rajsko; pervasive painful memories; sharing his experiences with his children; and speaking to groups at Yad Vashem. He shows photographs and a sheet he used to escape.
Extent and Medium
8 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
- Christophersen, Thies, -- 1918-
- S., Elimelech, -- 1919-
- Ben-Gurion, David, -- 1886-1973.
Corporate Bodies
- International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
- Poland. -- Polskie Siły Zbrojne. -- Armia Krajowa.
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Men.
- Jews -- Poland -- Warsaw.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Forced labor.
- Jews -- Poland -- Mława.
- Concentration camps -- Sociological aspects.
- Escapes.
- Concentration camp inmates -- Religious life.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Mutual aid.
- Death marches.
- War crime trials.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Hiding.
- Mass killings.
- Hospitals in concentration camps.
- Survivor-child relations.
- Antisemitism -- Postwar.
- Postwar experiences.
- Postwar effects.
Places
- Mława ghetto.
- Poland.
- Warsaw (Poland)
- Żuromin (Poland)
- Pomiechówek (Poland)
- Sierpc (Poland : Powiat)
- Mława (Poland)
- Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki (Poland)
- Nový Bohumín (Czech republic)
- Chotomów (Poland)
- Katowice (Poland)
- Gdańsk (Poland)
- Berlin (Germany)
- Magdeburg (Germany)
- Marburg (Germany)
- Paris (France)
- Marseille (France)
- Palestine -- Emigration and immigration.
- Rajsko (Poland : Concentration camp)
- Warsaw ghetto.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat