- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Dan A., who was born in 1922 in Kraków, Poland, one of two children. He recounts his family's affluence; attending a Zionist school; his father's military draft as a physician; he and his sister being sent to relatives in Zolochiv; his father joining them; Soviet occupation; attending university in L'viv; German invasion in 1941; moving to Przemyśl; ghettoization; his mother joining them; his father working in the ghetto hospital; his death from typhus in 1942; encounters with Josef Schwammberger, German head of the ghetto; round-up in 1943; separation from his mother and sister (they were killed); escaping from a train; assistance from local farmers; returning to the ghetto; deportation to Szebnie, then Birkenau; transfer to Auschwitz, then Buna/Monowitz; assignment to a privileged position as a translator; writing letters for illiterate Poles to obtain extra food; assignment to masonry training, to which he attributes his survival; doing repairs inside the camp; assignment to a privileged position maintaining the showers; public executions; a death march to Gleiwitz in January 1945; hiding with others during the evacuation; leaving two days later; staying with a local woman for a week; liberation by Soviet troops; traveling to Kraków, Przemyśl, then Bucharest; assistance from the Joint; smuggling Jews from Budapest to Graz, and money to Italy; joining Abba Kovner's group; learning of a plan by survivors to poison a German city; being assigned to search for war criminals in Germany and Austria; traveling with the Jewish Brigade to Paris, Lyon, then Marseille; illegal emigration by ship to Palestine; interdiction by the British; and release six weeks later. He shows photographs and a camp uniform.
- Author/Creator
- A., Dan, 1922-
- Published
- Tel Aviv, Israel : Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1994
- Interview Date
- May 12, June 2, and June 16, 1994.
- Locale
- Poland
Przemyśl
Kraków (Poland)
Zolochiv (Lʹvivsʹka oblastʹ, Ukraine)
Lʹviv (Ukraine)
Przemyśl (Poland)
Bucharest (Romania)
Budapest (Hungary)
Graz (Austria)
Italy
Paris (France)
Lyon (France)
Marseille (France)
Palestine
- Cite As
- Dan A. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3706). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Notes
-
This testimony is in Hebrew.
Related publication: How to survive Auschwitz / Dan Arad. --1993.
