- Summary
- Video testimony of Rabbi Armin F., who was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia in 1926. Mr. F. describes growing up in a small town near Bratislava; Hungarian occupation; studying at Yeshivoth; and his first awareness of danger when a Purim festival was cancelled in Bratislava because of the Anschluss. He recalls German occupation of Budapest, where he had been studying; increased restrictions on Jews; ghettoization; deportation with his family to Auschwitz in May 1944; separation from them; and incarceration in the Zigeunerlager (Gypsy Lager). He discusses Nazi methods of dehumanizing the prisoners; camp hierarchy and rules; arranging to see his mother and sister in Auschwitz; his group of friends who always helped each other; and transfer to Mühldorf in September 1944. He recounts forced labor in a forest camp; transport on a train where he met his mother and sister; liberation by Americans; being taken for dead and saved because his mother wanted to see his body; return to Bratislava; emigration to the United States; and education and ordination as a rabbi. Mr. F. discusses his work as an educator; integrating his concentration camp uniform cap into his Seder; teaching a course on the Holocaust at Brooklyn College; and his children. He emphasizes the dehumanizing effects of arrival at Auschwitz; the constant and excruciating hunger; and refusal of Hungarian Jews to recognize their fate at the hands of the Germans.
- Author/Creator
- F., Armin, 1926-
- Published
- New York, N.Y. : Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale, 1984
- Interview Date
- November 11, 1984.
- Locale
- Hungary
Sátoraljaújhely
Bratislava (Slovakia)
Czechoslovakia
Budapest (Hungary)
Sátoraljaújhely (Hungary)
Munich (Germany)
Austria
- Cite As
- Rabbi Armin F. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-297). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Prince, Robert, interviewer.
Neuman, Susanna, interviewer.
- Notes
-
Related publication: Elli : coming of age in the holocaust / Livia E. Bitton Jackson. -- New York : Times Books, c1980.
