Yakov S. Holocaust testimony (HVT-1812) interviewed by Dina Choshen and Raphael Rozner,

Videotape testimony of Yakov S., who was born in Tomaszów Mazowiecki, Poland in 1924. He recalls his family's Hasidism; attending yeshivot in Tomaszów and Łódź; harassment by non-Jews; his bar mitzvah; German invasion in September 1939; deportation to Częstochowa a few days later; slave labor constructing a concentration camp; his anguish at being forced to work on Yom Kippur; transfer to Görlitz, then Rawitsch; praying for help; transfer to Buchenwald; sleeping next to a rabbi; a non-Jew smuggling medicine to him; sharing it with others; suffering after the rabbi died; observing Hanukkah and Yom Kippur in secret; transfer to Auschwitz/Birkenau; a Polish civilian worker bringing him food and explosives that he passed to the underground; their revolt and destruction of a gas chamber; a severe beating; refusing to divulge names; hospitalization; friends saving him from selections; transfer to Buna/Monowitz; a death march to Gleiwitz in April 1945; transport in open freight trains to Buchenwald; Czechs throwing them food en route; transfer to Altenburg; a Polish non-Jew bringing him extra food; liberation; exacting some revenge on Nazi guards; traveling to Prague, Plzeň, then Italy; illegal emigration to Palestine; incarceration in Cyprus; meeting his future wife; marriage; and arrival in Israel. Mr. S. notes his orthodoxy and continuing belief in God, and nightmares resulting from his experiences.