Israel W. Holocaust testimony (HVT-1160)

Videotape testimony of Israel W., who was born in Zawiercie, Poland in 1922 to a family of five children. He recalls their orthodoxy; his father working as a kosher butcher; antisemitic harassment; his parents' deaths in the 1930s; working as a furrier in Sosnowiec, Łódź, then Zawiercie; German invasion in 1939; reporting for forced labor in 1940; slave labor in Auenrode, Markstädt, Janislawice (Johannisdorf), Gross Masselwitz (he was separated from his brother there and never saw him again), Breslau-Neukirch, and Fünfteichen/Markstädt; a death march to Gross-Rosen; train transfer to Buchenwald and Bisingen; liberation from a train; living in Feldafing displaced persons camp; and returning home. Mr. W. discusses details of camp life; severe beatings; assistance from other prisoners; inter-group relations in the camps; and learning the fate of his siblings from survivors who had been with them (he is the sole survivor of his family).