Julius G. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Julius G., who was born in Scharnhorst, Germany in 1914, one of five children. He recounts his father's death from World War I wounds; attending public school; his family's move to Hamm in 1924; participating in a leftist Jewish club, then a socialist group (SAJ); harassment by an antisemitic teacher; joining a communist youth group (KJV); expulsion from school for communist activities; attending gymnasium in Münster from 1931-1933; his bar mitzvah; visiting his nanny's family in Scharnhorst; narrowly escaping arrest; traveling to Cologne; living with relatives in Trier, then Luxembourg; working for his uncle; traveling to Strasbourg then visiting a communist center in Saarbrücken; living at his uncle's resort in Bad Mondorf-les-Bains; attending a trade camp; working on a farm in southern France; moving with his girlfriend to Basel in 1934; emigrating with his mother and girlfriend to Palestine in 1935; participating in a group promoting peace between Jews and Arabs; traveling to Spain in 1936 to fight in the Spanish Civil War; hospitalization when he was wounded in 1938; fleeing to France after their defeat; blowing up enemy planes en route; incarceration in Gurs in September 1939, then transfer to Le Vernet; deportation with Jewish prisoners to Auschwitz in 1942; a fellow communist urging him to volunteer for transfer; transfer to Jawiszowice; slave labor in coal mines; being appointed kapo; encounters with Kommandant Wilhelm Kowol; assigning weaker prisoners to lighter work; sharing extra food; a death march, then train transfer in January 1945 to Wrocław, then Buchenwald; and liberation by United States troops. Mr. G. describes many details of camp life; the camp hierarchy; solidarity among Spanish Civil War veterans; and their reunion in 1986.

6 videocassettes