Haim G. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Haim G., a prominent Israeli poet, journalist, and filmmaker, who was born in Tel Aviv, Palestine (presently Israel) in 1923. In addition to information included in a previously recorded testimony (HVT-1352), Mr. G. discusses attending a memorial service in the main Budapest synagogue in 1947; accompanying a group of survivors traveling to Vienna; observing poor conditions at the Rothschild Hospital displaced persons camp; training survivors in Czechoslovakia as future paratroopers for the Israeli military; returning to Israel to fight in the Arab-Israel War, often alongside Holocaust survivors; completing his first book, Pirḥe-Esh: Shirim in 1949; studying at Hebrew University for two years, then the Sorbonne for one year; his wife joining him; writing a book in 1951 that was banned; editing then republishing it; and translating French literature to Hebrew. Mr. G. discusses some of his publications; not believing in God, but the importance of this belief to Israel, his Israeli identity, thus his interest in God; thinking about the Holocaust daily and its influence on his work; and additional themes about which he writes: humans, their internal worlds, family, love, nationhood, and the place of humans in the nation.

28 videocassettes