Śimḥah R. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Simcha R., who was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1924, one of four children. He recounts his family's orthodoxy; attending Jewish schools; fights with Polish children; participating in Hashomer Hatzair and Akiba through which he met Mordechai Anielewicz in 1939; German invasion in September; a bomb killing his grandparents, brother, aunt, and wounding him; anti-Jewish restrictions; removing the star to travel to Radom for food; ghettoization; trading with Poles for food; joining relatives in Klwów; working for six months as a cowherd for a non-Jew; returning to the Warsaw ghetto; joining his parents in a kibbutz in Czerniaków; joining the Zionist underground; returning to the ghetto with his family; participating in the Jewish fighting organization, Z.O.B.; his family hiding with his mother's Polish friend in Sierierki; returning to participate in the Dror division of Z.O.B; meeting Yitzhak Zuckerman; serving under Hanoch Gutman and Marek Edelman; buying guns from Poles with funds he collected from wealthy Jews; preparing to fight rather than being rounded-up in April 1943; throwing grenades and Molotov cocktails at German troops entering the ghetto; retreating to bunkers; finding the body of Michał Klepfisz who had been in charge of grenades; observing the utter destruction when they left the bunker; being sent out of the ghetto with Zalman Friedrich to meet Zuckerman; he and Tovia Szajngut recruiting Polish sewer workers to organize an escape of a surviving ghetto fighters through the sewers, among them Pnina G. and Zivia Lubetkin; having to leave over a dozen behind; and reaching the forest.
Extent and Medium
19 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
- Zuckerman, Yitzhak, -- 1915-1981.
- Edelman, Marek, -- 1919-2009.
- Zalman, Friedrich.
- Lubetkin, Zivia.
- Anielewicz, Mordecai, -- 1919-1943.
- R., Śimḥah, -- 1924-
- Klepfisz, Michał.
- Gutman, Hanoch.
- Kovner, Abba, -- 1918-1987.
- Szajngut, Tuvia.
- Gomułka, Władysław, -- 1905-1982.
- Kovner, Vitka, -- 1920-2012.
Corporate Bodies
- American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
- Poland. -- Armia Ludowa.
- Poland. -- Polskie Siły Zbrojne. -- Armia Krajowa.
- Deror (Organization : Poland)
- Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa (Poland)
- World Hashomer Hatzair.
Subjects
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Men.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Escapes.
- Revenge.
- Public opinion -- Israel.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Public opinion.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Poland.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Jewish resistance.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Jews -- Poland -- Warsaw.
- Hiding.
- Partisans.
- Bunkers.
- Postwar experiences.
- Child survivors.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- False papers.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
Places
- Warsaw ghetto.
- Kraków (Poland)
- Grodzisk Mazowiecki (Poland)
- Pruszków (Województwo Mazowieckie, Poland)
- Suchedniów (Poland)
- Warsaw (Poland) -- History -- Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 1943.
- Warsaw (Poland) -- History -- Uprising, 1944.
- Czerniaków (Warsaw, Poland)
- Warsaw (Poland)
- Poland.
- Klwów (Poland)
- Radom (Województwo Mazowieckie, Poland)
- Bucharest (Romania)
- Lublin (Poland)
- Pontebba (Italy)
- Budapest (Hungary)
- Paris (France)
- Munich (Germany)
- Palestine -- Emigration and immigration.
- Marseille (France)
- Siekierki (Mazowieckie, Poland)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat