Leon B. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Leon B., who was born in Katowice, Poland in 1919, one of three children. He recounts his family's affluence; attending cheder and a German school; participating in Zionist groups, including Betar; a lecture by Vladimir Jabotinsky; his father purchasing land in Israel; managing a Zionist youth camp in Sękowa in summer 1939; German invasion; fleeing with his father and sister to Będzin; his mother and brother joining them; moving to Sosnowiec; organizing a Zionist group with Yiśraʼel Ḳoz'ukh and others; warning fellow Jews not to report for deportation; forced labor building roads; deportation to Gross Masselwitz; escaping back to Sosnowiec; forming an underground group; meetings with Jewish resistance leaders Eliezer Geller and Mordecai Anielewicz; his mother's arrest; obtaining her release by threatening Moshe Merin, head of the Judenrat; meeting with Polish partisans from Armia Krajowa; traveling with a Pole to Częstochowa and its ghetto using false papers, then to another city where he obtained weapons; ghettoization; hiding with non-Jewish friends; sending their group members and their parents to Austria and Hungary as non-Jews; escaping to Vienna; arrest; escaping to Sosnowiec; hiding with Polish friends; being smuggled to Budapest in November 1943; and reunion with his parents and friends, whose escapes he had arranged.
Extent and Medium
10 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
- Merin, Moshe, -- 1906-1943.
- Ḳoz'ukh, Yiśraʼel ʻAzriʼel, -- 1919-1943.
- B., Leon, -- 1919-
- Jabotinsky, Vladimir, -- 1880-1940.
- Brand, Joel, -- 1906-1964.
- Anielewicz, Mordecai, -- 1919-1943.
- Geller, Eliezer, -- 1916-
Corporate Bodies
- Poland. -- Polskie Siły Zbrojne. -- Armia Krajowa.
- Gross Masselwitz (Concentration camp)
- Betar.
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Mutual aid.
- Postwar experiences.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Men.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Zionists.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Jews -- Poland -- Sosnowiec ((Województwo Śląskie)
- Forced labor.
- Jewish councils.
- Escapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Poland.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Jewish resistance.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Hungary.
- Jews -- Poland -- Częstochowa.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, German.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Jews -- Rescue.
- Concentration camps -- Sociological aspects.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, Hungarian.
- False papers.
- Death marches.
- Hiding.
Places
- Poland.
- Będzin (Poland)
- Sosnowiec (Województwo Śląskie, Poland)
- Katowice (Poland)
- Sękowa (Poland)
- Budapest (Hungary)
- Sopron (Hungary)
- Częstochowa (Poland)
- Vienna (Austria)
- Sosnowiec ghetto.
- Bucharest (Romania)
- Szeged (Hungary)
- Mohács (Hungary)
- Częstochowa ghetto.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat