Daniel A. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Daniel A., who was born in Vilna, Poland (presently Vilnius, Lithuania) in 1931, the youngest of five children. He recounts his family's affluence; attending a Hebrew school; Soviet occupation; his family being scheduled for deportation to Siberia; German invasion in June 1941; his sister Batya and her children living with them; his sister Dina working as a nurse in the Jewish hospital; ghettoization in September; Batya hiding gold in their basement; breaking valuables they could not bring with them so others could not have them; Dina obtaining a position for Batya at the hospital; Dina switching her documents with Batya so she could claim their father was her husband and her younger siblings her children, thus saving them from round-ups to mass killings; his parents hiding in a bunker in November 1941 during a round-up; Batya hiding Mr. A. and his siblings at the hospital; returning to find their parents gone; attending school, a distraction from hunger and cold; his sister Rivka's death; attending synagogue daily to say Kaddish for her; the rabbi inviting him to attend his yeshiva; finding strength through his Torah studies; a public hanging; learning ghetto songs; working in the locksmith shop; notice they were to be deported; Dina dressing him as a girl to keep him with her; pushing him to the men's group upon arrival at Kaiserwald; and slave labor building railroad tracks.
Extent and Medium
13 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
- A., Daniel, -- 1931-
Corporate Bodies
- Beriḥah (Organization)
- Stutthof (Concentration camp)
- World Hashomer Hatzair.
- Kaiserwald (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Mutual aid.
- Hospitals in concentration camps.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Hiding.
- Soviet occupation.
- Child survivors.
- War crime trials -- Germany -- Düsseldorf.
- Revenge.
- Death marches.
- Concentration camp inmates -- Religious life.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Concentration camps -- Sociological aspects.
- Forced labor.
- Faith.
- Jewish ghettos -- Songs and music.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Survivor-child relations.
- Postwar effects.
- Postwar experiences.
- Antisemitism -- Postwar.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Men.
- Video tapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Jews -- Lithuania -- Vilnius.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Family.
- Brothers and sisters.
Places
- Kokoski (Poland : Concentration camp)
- Palestine -- Emigration and immigration.
- Vilna ghetto.
- Vilnius (Lithuania)
- Łódź (Poland)
- Poland.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat