Israel S. Holocaust testimony (HVT-549) interviewed by Gitta Fajerstein

Videotape testimony of Israel S., who was born in Munkács, Czechoslovakia (now Ukraine) in 1929. He recalls his religious family and happy childhood; Hungarian occupation; anti-Jewish measures; escaping deportation to Poland; German invasion in 1944; evacuation with his family to a brick factory; separation from his mother and sisters upon arrival at Auschwitz (he never saw his mother again); two weeks in Birkenau; separation from his father upon transfer to Mauthausen; forced labor in a coal mine in Melk; a prisoner saving him during an accident (he was seriously injured); assistance from a German officer; transfer by train and a death march to Ebensee; and liberation by United States troops. Mr. S. describes emigration to the United States in 1948; marriage in 1957; and his family of seven children. He discusses his total depression in Auschwitz; beginning to struggle to survive in Melk; and the importance of his group of friends to his survival.