- Summary
- 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)
- Cite As
- Samuel G. Holocaust testimony (HVT-2606). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Gurewitsch, Brana, interviewer.
- Notes
-
Related publication: I chose life / Samuel Gruber ; as told to Gertrude Hirschler ; introd. by Howard L. Adelson. -- New York : Shengold, c1978.
