Overview
- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Witold F., a non-Jew born in Pleszew, Poland in 1915. He recalls attending school in Chorzów, a military academy in Warsaw, and teaching in Silesia; German invasion; military service in Kraków; being captured by Germans in Tomaszow Lubelski; attempting escape to Czechoslovakia using false papers; incarceration in Kraków's Montelupich prison; and inclusion in the second transport to Auschwitz in 1940. Mr. F. describes camp life in detail; friends helping him to obtain a job, which included access to many areas; receiving and writing letters home (he shows them); observing construction of the crematoria and gassing of Soviet POWs in 1941; clandestine Catholic services; Maximilian Kolbe volunteering to replace another man to be executed; organization of the prisoner underground; visits by Eichmann and Himmler and the activities of Drs. Mengele and Dering; the Sonderkommando uprising; transfer to Sachsenhausen and Wanzleben; and liberation from a death march. He recounts living in UNRRA's Schwäbisch Gmünd displaced persons camp; marriage in 1945; and emigration from France to Ecuador, then the United States. He discusses continuing nightmares and war crimes trials that resulted in light sentences and acquittals, and shows sketches done by a friend in Auschwitz and family photographs.
- Published
- New Haven, Conn. : Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1993
- Interview Date
- July 6, 1993.
- Locale
- Poland
Pleszew (Poland)
Warsaw (Poland)
Chorzów (Województwo Śląskie, Poland)
Kraków (Poland)
Silesia
Tomaszów Lubelski (Poland)
Ecuador - Cite As
- Witold F. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2146). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Copies
- 3 copies: 3/4 in. master; 3/4 in. dub; band 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
- Physical Description
- 1 videorecording (2 hr., 47 min.) : col
Keywords & Subjects
- Subjects (Local Yale)
- Postwar effects.
Mutual aid.
Postwar experiences.
Concentration camps Revolts.
Concentration camps Underground movements.
False papers.
Mass killings.
Resistance.
Art in concentration camps. - Subjects
- Video tapes. Men. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives. World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, Polish. Concentration camp inmates. Concentration camps--Sociological aspects. Forced labor. Friendship. World War, 1939-1945--Atrocities. World War, 1939-1945--Participation, Polish. Concentration camp inmates--Religious life. Nightmares. Poland. Pleszew (Poland) Warsaw (Poland) Chorzów (Województwo Śląskie, Poland) Kraków (Poland) Silesia. Tomaszów Lubelski (Poland) Ecuador. Oral histories (document genres) Refugee camps. Death marches. F., Witold,--1915- Kolbe, Maximilian,--Saint,--1894-1941. Himmler, Heinrich,--1900-1945. Mengele, Josef,--1911-1979. Dering, Wladislaw Alexander. Eichmann, Adolf,--1906-1962. United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. Auschwitz (Concentration camp) Birkenau (Concentration camp) Sachsenhausen (Concentration camp) Montelupich (Prison)
Administrative Notes
- Holder of Originals
-
Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
- Special Collection
-
Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
- Link to Yale University Library Catalog:
- http://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/1065452
- Record last modified:
- 2018-06-04 13:32:00
- This page:
- http://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/hvt1065452
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