Yitzhak P. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Yitzhak P., who was born in 1906 in Recklinghausen, Germany, the oldest of four children. He recounts his father's service in World War I; living briefly under French occupation; participating in Maccabi; his father's death in 1928; emigration of two brothers to Palestine in 1930; working on a Zionist training farm in Neuendorf; anti-Jewish boycotts; his mother's paralysis; working in Gelsenkirchen; losing his job after Kristallnacht; forced labor in Paderborn; his mother's death in 1941; deportation to Auschwitz; slave labor in Buna/Monowitz; sharing extra food received from a German guard with other prisoners; hospitalization; a prisoner nurse (Arthur P.) saving his life; carrying a fellow prisoner during a death march to Gleiwitz; being loaded on open freight trains; bringing water to several boxcars while stopped; being rerouted from outside Mauthausen to another camp; Allied bombings; abandonment by the guards; assistance from locals; traveling with other survivors to Berlin, then Ravensbrück; meeting the Jewish Brigade; moving to a kibbutz; traveling with the Brigade to Eindhoven; smuggling Jews from Germany to Antwerp; emigration by ship to Palestine via Marseille; interdiction by the British; incarceration in ʻAtlit for two weeks; reunion with his brothers; marriage; the births of his daughters; and receiving reparations from Germany. Mr. P. discusses group solidarity of German prisoners in the camps, and visiting Recklinghausen in 1962 to erect a monument for his family. He shows photographs.
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.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- P., Yitzhak, -- 1906-
Corporate Bodies
- Maccabi World Union.
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Monowitz (Concentration camp)
- Ravensbrück (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Postwar experiences.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Concentration camps -- Sociological aspects.
- Crystal Night, 1938.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Mutual aid.
- Hospitals in concentration camps.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Men.
- Forced labor.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Death marches.
- Kristallnacht, 1938.
Places
- Neuendorf (Germany)
- Marseille (France)
- Eindhoven (Netherlands)
- Palestine -- Emigration and immigration.
- ʻAtlit (Israel)
- Paderborn (Germany: Concentration camp)
- Gleiwitz (Poland : Concentration camp)
- Germany.
- Recklinghausen (Münster, Germany)
- Ruhr (Germany : Region) -- History -- French occupation, 1923-1925.
- Gelsenkirchen (Germany)
- Berlin (Germany)
- Antwerp (Belgium)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat