- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Joseph B., a non-Jew who was born in Stráže, Czechoslovakia in approximately 1921. He recalls attending school in Prague; enlisting in the Czech air force; German annexation; joining the underground; traveling with a group being smuggled to England; hiding in Komárno where a Jewish woman was hiding; bringing her with them; arrest at the Hungarian border; imprisonment in Budapest; release by the underground; traveling to Constanța, then to England; training in Scapa Flow and then an RAF school; flying missions against German planes; being shot down over Germany; arrest in Emden; a year of solitary confinement and torture in Zelenstrasse prison (Nuremberg), then almost another year in Stadelheim prison (Munich); transfer to Dachau; resisting threats of shooting if he did not reveal information; transfer to Buchenwald in November 1943; contact with United States POWs; stripping uniforms from dead non-Jews and supplying them to Jews, which saved their lives; transfer to another camp; forced labor in an airplane factory; a Belgian partisan supplying him and another prisoner with false papers and civilian clothing; escaping on December 28, 1944; returning to England; joining Allied forces in Germany to get revenge; reunion with his parents after the war; a Czech diplomatic appointment in Munich; remaining after Czechoslovakia became communist; emigrating to the United States; marriage to an American; and serving in Korea. Mr. B. discusses sharing his experiences with his wife and children; speaking at schools; a recent RAF reunion; and visiting Dachau and Buchenwald. He shows photographs and documents.
- Author/Creator
- B., Joseph, 1921?-
- Published
- Cleveland, Ohio : National Council of Jewish Women, Holocaust Archive Project, 1984
- Interview Date
- August 24, 1984.
- Locale
- Czech Republic
Germany
Stráže (Czechoslovakia)
Czechoslovakia
Prague (Czech Republic)
Komárno (Západoslovenský kraj, Slovakia)
Budapest (Hungary)
Constanța (Romania)
Scapa Flow (Scotland)
Emden (Lower Saxony, Germany)
Munich (Germany)
- Cite As
- Joseph B. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-331). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Rabinsky, Leatrice, interviewer.
