- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Ernest S., who was born in Gherla, Romania in 1925, the youngest of five children. He recounts his family moving to Cluj in 1932; one brother's emigration to Palestine; Hungarian occupation; working on the family dairy farm; German occupation in spring 1944; ghettoization; deportation with his parents and two siblings to Auschwitz; separation from his family upon arrival (he never saw them again); assignment to the Zigeunerlager (Gypsy Lager), then transfer to another barrack; learning of the gas chambers; transfer two weeks later to Hirschberg; slave labor in Phrix Werke and Askania Werke factories; a German soldier giving him extra food; clandestinely praying with other prisoners on Rosh ha-Shanah; a kapo pretending to beat him in order to protect him from a real beating; praying in gratitude; a severe beating resulting in a permanent disability; a death march; others helping him because he was barefoot; train transfer to Buchenwald; prisoners killing a brutal kapo from Hirschberg; hospitalization; liberation; assistance from the Red Cross; traveling to Italy, intending to join his brother in Palestine; learning another brother was in Gherla; and joining him there until emigrating in 1950. Mr. S. discusses relationships between national groups of camp prisoners and the prisoner hierarchy; and visiting his grandparents' graves in Romania in 1975 and Buchenwald in 1989. He shows documents and photographs.
- Author/Creator
- S., Ernest, 1925-
- Published
- Houston, Tex. : Holocaust Education Center and Memorial Museum of Houston, 1990
- Interview Date
- November 23, 1990.
- Locale
- Romania
Cluj-Napoca
Gherla (Romania)
Cluj-Napoca (Romania)
Italy
- Cite As
- Ernest S. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-1549). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Osadchey, Lidya, interviewer.
Steinfeld, Larry, interviewer.