Advanced Search

Learn About The Holocaust

Special Collections

My Saved Research

Login

Register

Help

Skip to main content

Mikel C. Holocaust testimony (HVT-1204) interviewed by Edith Bayme and Bonnie Dwork,

Oral History | Fortunoff Collection ID: HVT-1204

Videotape testimony of Mikel C., who was born in Kraków, Poland in 1920. He describes his affluent family; moving to Vienna; the Anschluss; beatings of Jews: illegally entering France; arrest in Metz; transfer to Germany; arrests for illegally entering Holland and Belgium; incarceration in a Belgian refugee camp; release to study art in Antwerp with assistance from the Jewish community; German invasion; traveling to Brussels; watching the British evacuation at Dunkerque; translating for the SS in Calais as a non-Jew; joining his sister in Brussels (she later emigrated to the United States); managing a nightclub for German officers; rejoining his parents in Vienna; appraising valuables confiscated from Jews for a German official; hiding with his parents during deportations; and escape to Bucharest via Zagreb. Mr. C. recalls their deportation to Czernowitz, then Mogilev; sadistic killing of Jewish children; transfer to Bacāu; forced labor at a leather factory; sabotaging the work; escaping; joining the partisans; liberation by Soviet troops; traveling with his parents to Bucharest; marriage; moving to Salzburg; visiting displaced persons camps; joining the Irgun; sabotaging British trains; living in Paris; and emigration to the United States. Mr. C. notes he is plagued by memories, particularly of victimized children, and he shows photographs and his drawings.

Author/Creator
C., Mikel, 1920-
Published
New York, N.Y. : Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1989
Interview Date
May 8, 1989.
Locale
Poland
Kraków (Poland)
Vienna (Austria)
Metz (France)
Brussels (Belgium)
Antwerp (Belgium)
Dunkerque (France)
Calais (France)
Zagreb (Croatia)
Bucharest (Romania)
Chernivt︠s︡i (Ukraine)
Chernivt͡si (Ukraine)
Cernāut̨ai (Romania)
Mahili︠o︡ŭ (Belarus)
Bacău (Romania)
Paris (France)
Salzburg (Austria)
Austria
Language
English
Copies
3 copies: 3/4 in. master; 3/4 in. dub; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
Cite As
Mikel C. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-1204). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.