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Iohan B. Holocaust testimony (HVT-1337) interviewed by Irene Wasserkrug and Mitzi Zerivitz,

Oral History | Fortunoff Collection ID: HVT-1337

Videotape testimony of Iohan B. who was born in Ilva Mare, Romania in 1923, one of seven children in a poor family. He recalls attending a Jewish school until the seventh grade, then high school; quitting school to work at age fourteen and a half; becoming a licensed mechanic; Hungarian occupation; anti-Jewish restrictions; firing of all Jews from his factory ; refusing to emigrate because he did not want to leave his parents; ghettoization with his family in Bistrița ghetto for three weeks; and deportation to Auschwitz. Mr. B. describes the pain of seeing his family suffer; separation from his father and brother in a transport to Buchenwald; working in a munitions factory in Bochum; praying to die; liberation by British troops; returning to Ilve Mare to seek surviving family; initially finding no other Jews; the return of two of his sisters; learning of his father's and brother's deaths; living with an aunt in a nearby town; marriage; and emigration to the United States in 1966. He discusses a visit with his son to Auschwitz-Birkenau and the vivid return of his memory while there.

Author/Creator
B., Iohan, 1923-
Published
Baltimore, Md. : Baltimore Jewish Council, 1989
Interview Date
October 29, 1989.
Locale
Romania
Bistrița
Ilva Mare (Romania)
Bistrița (Bistrița-Năsăud, Romania)
Language
English
Copies
2 copies: 3/4 in. dub; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
Cite As
Iohan B. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-1337). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
 
View in Yale University Library Catalog: http://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/1055913
Record last modified: 2018-05-29 11:46:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/hvt1055913