Moshe V. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Moshe V., who was born in Pinsk, Russia (presently Belarus), one of three children. He recalls his family's relative affluence; his father's career as a teacher and his mother's as a physician; attending cheder and a Russian primary school; his mother's death in 1924; attending gymnasium starting in 1926; private lessons from a rabbi; attending engineering school in Warsaw; antisemitic harassment; living and working at the orphanage of Janusz Korczak; a summer at Korczak's camp in Gocławek; Korczak's influence leading him to change from engineering to become Korczak's student in pedagogy; marriage to a fellow student; becoming a teacher in the orphanage in 1936; working with Korczak's assistant, Stefania Wilczyńska; German invasion; having to move the orphanage to more primitive buildings; ghettoization; increasing numbers of orphans; working outside the orphanage to help support it; returning from work on August 5, 1942 to find the orphanage empty; realizing deportation meant death; escaping; assistance from non-Jewish friends; traveling to Lʹviv, then Kiev; working in construction as a non-Jew; volunteering for the Soviet military; joining a Polish division in 1944; and going with them all the way to Berlin. Mr. V. discusses Korzcak's child-rearing theories and methods, his enduring influence, and many posthumous honors Korzcak received after the war.

5 videocassettes