- Summary
- Videotape testimony of brothers Albert D., Chaïm D., and Henri D. who were born in Kozienice, Poland, in 1917, 1919, and 1923, respectively, to a family of five children. They recall their family's orthodoxy; participating in Betar; antisemitism in school; German invasion; briefly fleeing to a nearby village; hiding during round-ups for forced labor; ghettoization; Chaïm's and their father's transfer to work in Pionki; their father's return; Chaïm's marriage to Pola D.; Albert's and Henri's deportation to Pionki concentration camp (they never saw their parents and younger sister again); slave labor in a munitions factory; Pola's privileged position which provided them with extra food; trading with Polish workers; transfer to Auschwitz/Birkenau in summer 1944, then three days later to Buna/Monowitz with Pola's father and brother; slave labor for I. G. Farben; Pola's father's death in the hospital; secretly saying Kaddish for him; helping each other on the death march to Gleiwitz in January 1945; transport in open freight cars to Buchenwald; Czechs throwing them food from overpasses; clearing bombing rubble in Weimar; Chaïm's hospitalization; liberation by United States troops; transfer to France as orphans because Henri had registered as under eighteen; and Albert's marriage to Pola's sister Régine. They discuss details of prewar, ghetto, and camp life; their older sister's survival in hiding; the importance of remaining together to their survival; and their individual opinions on surviving due to luck, miracles, and the desire to see relatives. They show photographs, artifacts, and sing their mother's Yiddish songs.
- Author/Creator
- D., Albert, 1917-
- Published
- Paris, France : Témoignages pour mémoire, 1993
- Interview Date
- June 19, 1993.
- Locale
- Poland
Kozienice
Pionki
Kozienice (Poland)
Weimar (Thuringia, Germany)
- Cite As
- Albert D., Chaïm D., and Henri D. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2666). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Welt, Dorit, interviewer.
Waintrater, Régine, interviewer.
- Notes
-
This testimony is in French.
Related material: Pola D., Régine D., and Fany G. Holocaust testimony [wives and sisters-in-law] (HVT-2676), Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
