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Harry E. Holocaust testimony (HVT-1914) interviewed by Rayzl Kalifowicz-Waletsky,

Oral History | Fortunoff Collection ID: HVT-1914

Videotape testimony of Harry E., who was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1915, one of eight children. He recounts his family's poverty; their move to Kurów, then Zwierzyniec; attending public school; antisemitic harassment; their return to Warsaw in 1925; participating in S.K.I.F., the Bund youth group; attending a Yiddish Bund school; working as a floorer; German invasion; a bombing killing his mother, sister, and baby niece; working with his wife and sister in a Bund sanatorium/orphanage in Miedzeszyn near Falenica; support from the Joint; bringing his younger brother there; leaving eighteen months later during a round-up; hiding with his wife, sister, and brother in many places in Warsaw, posing as Christians; doing construction work inside the ghetto; arrest with his crew; imprisonment; transfer to Praga; release; assisting the Bund resistance; constructing hiding places for resistance leaders; being blackmailed by Poles who knew he was Jewish; his wife and sister working as domestics for ethnic Germans; taking his brother to an orphanage (he never saw him again); attending a Bund meeting; participating in the Polish uprising in 1944; and crossing to the Soviet side. Mr. E. discusses prewar politics among Bundists, communists, Zionists, and many Poles who helped him and his family survive at great personal risk.

Author/Creator
E., Harry, 1915-
Published
New York, N.Y. : A Living Memorial to the Holocaust-Museum of Jewish Heritage, 1992
Interview Date
January 2, 1992.
Locale
Poland
Warsaw
Warsaw (Poland)
Kurów (Lublin, Poland)
Zwierzyniec (Poland)
Miedzeszyn (Warsaw, Poland)
Falenica (Warsaw, Poland)
Praga (Warsaw, Poland)
Language
English
Copies
3 copies: 3/4 in. dub; Betacam SP restoration master; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
Cite As
Harry E. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-1914). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.