- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Saul J., who was born in Chmielnik, Poland in 1915, the elder of two brothers. He recounts his father's death when he was six; his mother's remarriage; living with his wealthy grandfather; attending religious and public schools; joining Hashomer Hatzair; clashes with his grandfather over his secular beliefs; moving to Warsaw; fighting against antisemitic violence; working and learning to be a mechanic; German invasion in September 1939; returning to Chmielnik; forced labor clearing snow from local roads; learning he was to be deported; escaping to relatives in Klimontów; returning home, fearing his grandfather would be killed; arrest; release two weeks later; traveling to Warsaw four times as a non-Jew, with assistance from Poles; capture with his brother; escaping alone; finding almost all the Jews gone; joining a small group in the ghetto sorting possessions of the deported and murdered Jews; transfer to Stopnica; escaping and hiding with help from Poles; surrendering; deportation to Kielce concentration camp in November 1942; slave labor in a munitions factory; transfer to Częstochowa in late 1944, then to Buchenwald in January 1945; friends assisting him when he was sick; hospitalization; transfer to Dachau; slave labor; liberation from an evacuation train by United States troops; assistance from the Red Cross; recovering from typhus in Landsberg displaced persons camp; returning to Chmielnik seeking relatives (none survived); returning to Landsberg; meeting his wife; marriage; living in Hamburg; traveling to Liège hoping to emigrate to Argentina to join an uncle; returning to Germany; and emigration to join another uncle in the United States.
- Author/Creator
- J., Saul , 1915-
- Published
- Ventnor, N.J. : Federation of Jewish Agencies of Atlantic County/Stockton State College, Oral History Project, 1995
- Interview Date
- October 12, 1995.
- Locale
- Poland
Chmielnik (Województwo Świętokrzyskie)
Chmielnik (Województwo Świętokrzyskie, Poland)
Warsaw (Poland)
Klimontów (Poland)
Stopnica (Województwo Świętokrzyskie, Poland)
Hamburg (Germany)
Liège (Belgium)
- Cite As
- Saul J. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3189). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Peskoe, Arthur, interviewer.
