Gerhard C. Holocaust testimony (HVT-998)

Videotape testimony of Gerhard C., who was born in Fraustadt, Germany (presently Wschowa, Poland) in 1920, an only child. He recalls attending gymnasium; expulsion due to antisemitic restrictions; antisemitic violence; his father's imprisonment and transfer to Berlin; moving there with his mother; his father's release; attending school; working for a sign company; his father's reluctance to emigrate thinking his status as a decorated war veteran offered protection; deportation with his parents to the Łódź ghetto in 1941; transfer three days later to Poznan (he never saw his parents again); becoming ill; his friends trading his jacket for medication from civilian workers; public hangings; transfer to Auschwitz, then Myslowice (Fürstengrube); privileged status as a sign painter; transfer to Dachau, then Dora; receiving extra food from an SS man; transfer to Nordhausen, then Bergen-Belsen; liberation by British troops; traveling to Hannover; living in Celle; marriage in 1947; his daughter's birth; locating relatives in Switzerland through the Red Cross; visiting them; and emigration to the United States via Bremerhaven in 1949 with assistance from UNRRA.