Seymour M. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Seymour M., who was born in Mukacheve, Czechoslovakia (presently Ukraine) in 1926, the youngest of four children. He recounts a happy childhood in Bistrița, Romania; attending yeshiva; Hungarian occupation in 1940, resulting in antisemitic violence; his brother's military draft; German invasion in May 1944; ghettoization; deportation with his family to Auschwitz/Birkenau; separation with his father from the women; his father convincing him to eat the soup; their transfer weeks later to Mauthausen, then days later to Melk; slave labor excavating tunnels; transfer to Ebensee in spring 1945; his father's illness resulting in their separation; volunteering for work to obtain food; dragging corpses from the barracks; liberation by United States troops; traveling with a group to Linz, intending to return to Bistrița; assistance from the Joint en route; finding his home vandalized, abandoned, and hidden valuables gone; meeting other survivors; depression realizing none of his friends or family had survived; remaining for a year in the vain hope his father or brother would return; emigration to join his aunt in the United States in 1949; and marriage the following year. Mr. M. discusses the importance of being with his father to his survival; becoming hardened in Ebensee; horrific memories, in spite of blocking out the worst; visiting the Austrian camps and Bistrița with his son and grandchildren in 2003; and writing his memoir in 2010.

2 videocassettes