- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Kurt S., who was born in Krefeld, Germany in 1924. He recalls being barred from university in 1938 due to anti-Jewish restrictions; working on a Jewish training farm in Silesia; Gestapo dissolution of the farm in 1941; returning to Krefeld; and transport with his parents to the Rīga ghetto in December. Mr. S. describes unloading ships; refusing a ship captain's offer to smuggle him to Denmark in order to remain with his parents; work details in Rīga, Salaspils, Kaiserwald and other places; frequent deaths from starvation, hangings, and shootings; narrowly escaping execution; his father's death in Kaiserwald; ship transport to Stutthof, where he last saw his mother in April 1944; volunteering for work in Buchenwald, Essen (a Krupp factory), and Jena; the death march in spring 1945; and liberation by United States troops. He recounts returning to Krefeld; learning his family of 180 had all been killed; living in a displaced persons camp near Frankfurt; marriage; and emigration to the United States in April 1946. Mr. S. provides many details of ghetto and concentration camp life; the aborted revolt by Jewish police in Rīga; and his brother's story (emigration to England after Kristallnacht, incarceration as an enemy alien, and deportation to Canada).
- Author/Creator
- S., Kurt, 1924-
- Published
- New Haven, Conn. : Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1993
- Interview Date
- May 14,1993.
- Locale
- Latvia
Rīga
Germany
Krefeld (Germany)
Silesia
- Cite As
- Kurt S. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2013). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Ritvo, Lucille B.,
Herz, Sara Moss, interviewer.
