Maurice B. Holocaust testimony (HVT-2425) interviewed by David Herman

Videotape testimony of Maurice B., who was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1939. He recounts his family observing the Sabbath and kashruth; feeling intimidated by German soldiers he saw from his window; his English grandmother living with them (his mother was born in England); their deportation to Westerbork in summer 1943; receiving food parcels; his father charging him to care for his mother, sister, and grandmother when he was deported (they never saw him again); surgery by an inmate physician when he was ill; his grandmother's toughness to the guards; transfer to Bergen-Belsen two months later; constant hunger; his mother giving birth to a baby girl who died from starvation within a year; taking death for granted; waiting for prisoners to die to get their bread; evacuation by train; liberation by Soviet troops; transport to Paris, then joining his aunt in England; and additional surgery. Mr. B. notes as a child never discussing his experiences; not identifying himself as a Jew until recently, thanks to his daughter; and sculpting helping him to “work out” his past.