Hans L. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Hans L., who was born in Stralsund, Germany in 1926 to a Christian mother and Jewish father. He recounts his father's service in World War I; his family's assimilation (they celebrated Easter and Christmas); moving to Potsdam in 1936 due to antisemitism, hoping to be anonymous there; relatives who were Nazis, including his maternal aunt; expulsion from school in 1937; attending a Jewish school; observing the destruction in Berlin after Kristallnacht; his mother's refusal to divorce his father despite official pressure; being assigned to work in a Borsig munitions factory in 1941; imprisonment with his father at Rosenstrasse in February 1943; release after a demonstration by non-Jewish spouses and relatives, including his mother and aunt; occasionally removing their stars to attend cultural events; his parents' involvement in a resistance group; threatened exposure in 1944; hiding in his aunt's home; leaving in spring 1945 when soldiers were billeted there; incarceration with his father in a camp for "Geltungsjuden"; returning to their home in Potsdam after the war; his aunt's arrest by Soviets; her release when they verified her support of them despite her Nazi party membership; his father's arrest in 1947; their emigration to Israel in 1949; military service; problems because his mother was not Jewish; and their return to Berlin in 1966. He shows photographs.

3 videocassettes