Peter L. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Peter L., who was born in Jihlava, Czechoslovakia in 1924, the second of two children. He recounts his assimilated family; attending a German school; his bar mitzvah but not in a synagogue (his father was an atheist); leaving school due to antisemitic harassment; learning to be a machinist; attending a Zionist school in Prague; living in an orphanage, then a Zionist dormitory; his school's closure; joining his family in the Třebíč ghetto; forced labor with his father in a nearby quarry; deportation with his family to Theresienstadt in May 1942; contacts with Fredy Hirsch; his sister sharing extra food (she worked in the kitchen); working outside the camp; smuggling food to share with family and friends; sham improvements for a Red Cross visit; his sister's deportation; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau in September 1944; separation from his father which continues to cause him pain; transfer to Kaufering in October; slave labor in a factory; transfer to Litoměřice; Czech prisoners and a civilian German worker giving them extra food; returning to Theresienstadt; abandonment by German guards; traveling to Prague; visiting his hometown (no one returned); serving in the Czech military; reunion with his sister; emigration to Israel; and marriage. Mr. L. discusses relations with POWs, the prisoner hierarchy, and his feelings in the camps.

9 videocassettes