- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Dov N., who was born in Nové Zámky, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovkia) in 1930, the fifth of six children. He recalls his family's orthodoxy; cordial relations with non-Jews; attending a Jewish school; Hungarian occupation in 1938; increasing antisemitism; his bar mitzvah; German occupation in March 1944; draft of his father and brother into a Hungarian slave labor battalion (they did not survive); ghettoization; deportation with his family to Auschwitz/Birkenau in June; a prisoner advising him upon arrival to say he was eighteen; separation from his mother, brother, and sisters; quarantine with other teenage boys for four months; focusing only on food; constant fear of selection for death; brief hospitalization; transfer to Gleiwitz; slave labor loading cement bags; receiving extra food from English prisoners of war; brief hospitalization; a death march in January to Blechammer; train transfer in open cars to Oranienburg; Czechs throwing food to them en route; train evacuation to Flossenbürg; disappearance of the guards; liberation by United States troops; placement in several orphanages; fasting and praying on Yom Kippur; transfer to a religious hostel in Manchester, England; attending an religious school; difficulty concentrating; learning from uncles in Palestine that three sisters and his older brother had survived; an uncle in the Jewish Brigade visiting him; legal emigration to Palestine in December 1947; an emotional reunion with his siblings; military service from 1950 to 1952; pervasive painful memories; learning the diamond industry; marriage to a Belgian women in 1962; emigrating to Belgium; and the births of two children. Mr. N. discusses intergroup relations in the camps; attributing his survival to help from God; visiting the camps to honor his murdered relatives; and sharing his experiences with his children when they were old enough and they asked questions. He shows a photograph.
- Author/Creator
- N., Dov, 1930-
- Published
- Antwerp, Belgium : Fondation Auschwitz, 2003
- Interview Date
- February 26 and March 13, 2003.
- Locale
- Slovakia
Nové Zámky
England
Germany
Czechoslovakia
Nové Zámky (Slovakia)
Manchester (England)
Palestine
- Cite As
- Dov N. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-4315). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Hemmerijckx, Rik, interviewer.
- Notes
-
This testimony is in Dutch.
Related publication: Bewaar altijd een stukje brood : het waargebeurde verhaal van Dov Nasch, een veertienjarige joodse jongen die het vernietigingskamp Auschwitz-Birkenau overleefde / Patricia De Landtsheer. -- Antwerpen ; Rotterdam : De Vries-Brouwers, c 2011.
