Benjamin V. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Benjamin V., who was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1936, one of four children. He recounts his parents living in Palestine in the 1930s; their return to Holland; German invasion; anti-Jewish restrictions; round-up to a synagogue; deportation with his family to Westerbork; hunger and lack of sanitation; his father sabotaging deportation lists when he cleaned the offices; celebrating Hanukkah; transfer to Bergen-Belsen in 1944; looking for extra food; his father obtaining school books for him; his mother making matzo and his father reciting the Haggadah in their barrack; sharing bread he found with his father; receiving two Red Cross packages; piles of corpses; boarding a train; Allied bombings; abandonment by the Germans in Zielitz; liberation; recuperating in Hillersleben; hospitalization; returning to Amsterdam; and encountering antisemitism. Mr. V. notes he and his siblings survived because of his parents' Palestine documents; feeling like he entered a "vacuum" after liberation; physical impairments resulting from concentration camps; and continuing to be orthodox.

1 videocassette