Friedrich R. Holocaust testimony (HVT-2803) interviewed by Garbrielle Tyrnauer

Videotape testimony of Friedrich R., a Romani, who was born in Breisgau, Germany in 1927. He recalls expulsion from school in 1938 due to racial laws; attending a school with Jewish children in Cologne for two years; deportation to work camps in Poland; slave labor in quarries and street building; starvation rations; transfer to an Organization Todt camp in Kielce; working with Jewish, Italian, and Russian forced laborers; sadistic guards; a death march through the Tyrol; liberation by United States troops; becoming ill from eating their rations; living in France; and returning to Germany. Mr. R. discusses his strong will to survive despite desperate conditions in the camps; his strong sense of German identity (his father fought in the First World War); over twenty years of difficulties obtaining German citizenship; his strong evangelical faith, including praying for Germany; his inability to understand how people could treat others so sadistically; and continuing discrimination against Romanies.