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Samuel G. Holocaust testimony (HVT-2606) interviewed by Brana Gurewitsch,

Oral History | Fortunoff Collection ID: HVT-2606

Videotape testimony of Samuel G., who was born in Podhajce, Poland (presently Pidhaĭt︠s︡i, Ukraine) in 1931. He recalls attending public school; one sister's emigration to the United States; attending high school in Lʹviv; antisemitic harassment; participating in Hashomer Hatzair; draft into the Polish military in 1936 for eighteen months; training to emigrate to Palestine in Khodoriv; military call-up in August 1939; posting to Nowy Sącz; German attack; being wounded; capture; hospitalization as a Polish POW; transfer to Stalag XIII-Nürnberg, then Stalag VIIIA; receiving mail and packages through the Red Cross; learning his family had been killed; segregation of Jews in 1941; transfer to Lublin (Lipowa 7); slave labor building roads and Majdanek concentration camp; contracting typhus; transfer to the Lublin ghetto hospital; meeting a Polish boy who told him to escape and join Polish soldiers in the woods; organizing a mass escape of Jewish POWs in October 1942 with assistance from the AK; and learning the AK killed most of the escaped Jews.

He tells of organizing twenty-two boys into two units; obtaining food from local farmers; assistance from the town leader of Garbów, a partisan; placing Jewish children and elderly with farmers; burning municipal offices to prevent German access to population records; conflicts between the AK and the AL; joining the AL which was not antisemitic; meetings at headquarters in Bujki; encountering Michał Żymierski, head of the AL, who treated the Jews well; joining the liberation of Lublin in summer 1944; assistance from the Joint and HIAS; traveling to Wrocław; marriage; living in Bad Reichenhall displaced persons camp; his son's birth; and emigration to the United States. Mr. G. discusses many episodes of partisan life, including revenge killings, and writing a book about his experiences.

Author/Creator
G., Samuel, 1913-
Published
New York, N.Y. : A Living Memorial to the Holocaust-Museum of Jewish Heritage, 1993
Interview Date
March 18, 1993.
Locale
Poland
Germany
Lublin
Pidhaĭt︠s︡i (Ukraine)
Lʹviv (Ukraine)
Khodoriv (Z︠H︡ydachivsʹkyĭ raĭon, Ukraine)
Nowy Sącz (Poland)
Garbów (Lublin, Poland)
Bujki (Poland)
Lublin (Poland)
Wrocław (Poland)
Language
English
Copies
2 copies: 3/4 in. dub; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
Cite As
Samuel G. Holocaust testimony (HVT-2606). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
 
View in Yale University Library Catalog: http://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/4288318
Record last modified: 2018-06-04 13:28:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/hvt4288318