- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Zalman H., who was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1929, the youngest of six brothers. He recounts being the sole Jew in his public school class; antisemitic harassment; his oldest brother's draft in 1937; German invasion; anti-Jewish restrictions; ghettoization; his father's death; two brothers escaping and working as non-Jews; smuggling food into the ghetto with Peretz, his next oldest brother; arrest by Polish police; escape; his father's non-Jewish friend once providing food; his mother's death; escaping with Peretz; moving from place to place; entering the ghetto often to obtain goods to sell outside the ghetto; a ghetto resistance fighter showing him a secret arms cache; fighting with him during the uprising; capture; escaping from a boxcar; finding Peretz; selling cigarettes and newspapers; attending church to reinforce his non-Jewish identity to the other street children; obtaining false papers from the underground, resulting in registering and living with a Polish woman as non-Jews; occasional contact with a person from the Jewish underground; joining the Polish resistance; fighting in the Polish uprising; and their unit surrendering.
Mr. H. recalls transport to Ożarów; transfer to Stalag VIII B (Lamsdorf), then IV B (Mühlberg); receiving Red Cross parcels; forced labor in an airplane factory; antisemitic harassment by non-Jewish Polish prisoners; assistance from their German supervisor; liberation by Soviet troops from an evacuation march; jumping on a train to Warsaw, leaving Peretz behind; reunion with another brother who had survived posing as a non-Jew; Peretz's return; joining a kibbutz; being smuggled to Bratislava, Prague, Germany, then Marseille; illegal emigration to Palestine in August 1946; interdiction by the British; incarceration on Cyprus; release; reunion with his brothers (they had arrived while he was in Cyprus); draft into the Palmaḥ; fighting in the Israel-Arab War; marriage; and the births of three sons. Mr. H. discusses his nightmares and sharing his experiences with his sons and in schools. He sings Polish resistance songs and shows photographs.
- Author/Creator
- H., Zalman, 1929-
- Published
- Tel Aviv, Israel : Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1994
- Interview Date
- February 24, and March 24, 1994.
- Locale
- Poland
Warsaw
Germany
Warsaw (Poland)
Ożarów (Poland)
Bratislava (Slovakia)
Prague (Czech Republic)
Frankfurt am Main (Germany)
Marseille (France)
Cyprus
Palestine
- Cite As
- Zalman H. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3638). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Notes
-
This testimony is in Hebrew.
Related publications: Le-haʻez li-ḥeyot / Perets Hokhman. -- Tel-Aviv : Miśrad ha-biṭaḥon, c1991.
Related material: Peretz H. Holocaust testimony [brother] (HVT-3569), Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
