Chaim L. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Chaim L., who was born in 1921, the youngest of three children. He recounts his middle-class family in Wieluń, Poland; arrest in 1937 for fighting with non-Jews; German invasion; fleeing to Łódź; returning home; ghettoization; forced labor; deportation in August 1941 (he never saw his family again); slave labor building roads in Loebau, Żabikowo, Kreising, and another camp; receiving letters and packages from home; transfer to Kreuzsee in spring 1941, then Eberswalde; working in a munitions factory with POWs; transfer to Auschwitz/Birkenau eighteen months later; reunion with a brother-in-law (he was killed); transfer to Buna/Monowitz; slave labor; public hangings; fellow prisoners helping him when he was ill; falling five stories; hospitalization; a German doctor helping him avoid selection; a death march to Gleiwitz; train transfer to Buchenwald, then Zwieberge; Allied bombings en route; slave labor digging tunnels; another death march; escape, recapture, and escape again; assistance from local Germans; and liberation by United States troops. Mr. L. details many episodes of camp life and emphasizes that starving humans cannot think of anything but food.
Extent and Medium
5 videocassettes
Conditions Governing Access
Segments of this testimony cannot be used without prior approval of donor.
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
- L., Chaim, -- 1921-
Corporate Bodies
- Monowitz (Concentration camp)
- Buchenwald (Concentration camp)
- Eberswalde (Concentration camp)
- Żabikowo (Concentration camp)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Holocaust survivors.
- Prisoners of war -- Germany.
- Jews -- Poland -- Wieluń (Łódź)
- Jewish ghettos.
- Forced labor.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Men.
- Video tapes.
- Mutual aid.
- Hiding.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Hospitals in concentration camps.
- Escapes.
- Death marches.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
Places
- Kreising (Poland : Concentration camp)
- Loebau (Poland : Concentration camp)
- Kreuzsee (Poland : Concentration camp)
- Gleiwitz (Poland : Concentration camp)
- Poland.
- Wieluń (Łódź, Poland)
- Łódź (Poland)
- Wieluń ghetto.
- Zwieberge (Germany : Concentration camp)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat