Simcha B. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Simcha B., who was born in Izbica, Poland in 1912, one of six children. He recalls attending public school; working in a pharmacy; serving in the Polish army; moving to Warsaw in 1938; German invasion; returning with his sister to Izbica; one brother fleeing to the Soviet zone; traveling to Volodymyr-Volynsʹkyĭ in the Soviet zone; returning to retrieve his sister; not being able to leave; forced labor cleaning roads; his father's deportation (he never saw him again); hiding during round-ups; his sisters' and mother's deportations; transfer to a labor camp for two months; returning home; deportation with his remaining family to Sobibór; volunteering as a pharmacist with his brother; assisting fellow prisoners; public execution of randomly chosen prisoners after escapes; poisoning a kapo who endangered their escape plans; acquiring and hiding weapons; mass shooting of men whose escape plan was discovered; arrival of a prisoner who was a Soviet officer; his organizing an escape; finding his brother after the escape (hundreds of the escapees were killed); hiding in a forest near Izbica, then with a Polish friend; leaving when warned that members of the AK were looking for them; hiding with another Polish friend; liberation by Soviet troops; return of his other brother from the Soviet Union; traveling to Zamość via Krasnystaw; marriage to a woman he met in Sobibór; arrest by the AK; release by Soviets; his son's birth; his wife, brother and sister-in-law traveling illegally to Germany; joining them; living in Berlin, then Heidenheim displaced persons camps; a visit by David Ben-Gurion; and emigration to Israel. Mr. B. describes life in Sobibór; the arrival of transports including killings on the unloading ramp; and participating in war crimes trials of Sobibór officials, including Gustav Wagner, Karl Frenzel, Franz Wolf, and Hubert Gomerski.
Extent and Medium
4 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. This testimony may not be used in any publication without the donor's consent.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- B., Simcha, -- 1912-2014.
- Ben-Gurion, David, -- 1886-1973.
- Wagner, Gustav Franz.
- Frenzel, Karl.
- Gomerski, Hubert.
Corporate Bodies
- Poland. -- Polskie Siły Zbrojne. -- Armia Krajowa.
- Sobibór (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Mass killings.
- Postwar experiences.
- Mutual aid.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Partisans.
- Antisemitism -- Postwar.
- Brothers.
- Prisoners of war -- Poland.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Jewish resistance.
- Forced labor.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, Jewish.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, Polish.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Concentration camps -- Underground movements.
- Forests.
- Hiding.
- War crime trials -- Germany.
- Refugee camps.
- Escapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Poland.
- Men.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
Places
- Berlin (Germany : Refugee camp)
- Krasnystaw (Poland)
- Heidenheim (Germany : Refugee camp)
- Izbica Lubelska (Poland)
- Warsaw (Poland)
- Volodymyr-Volynsʹkyĭ (Ukraine)
- Zamość (Poland)
- Poland.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat