Advanced Search

Learn About The Holocaust

Special Collections

My Saved Research

Login

Register

Help

Skip to main content

Norbert S. Holocaust testimony (HVT-2954) interviewed by Joni-Sue Blinderman,

Oral History | Fortunoff Collection ID: HVT-2954

Videotape testimony of Norbert S., who was born in Cavnic, Romania in 1923. He recalls his family's move to Petrova in 1925; his father's medical practice; increasing antisemitism; attending gymnasium in Timișoara; street attacks; graduating in Oradea; antisemitism preventing him from entering medical school in Cluj; returning home; working for a lumber company until German occupation in March 1944; ghettoization with his parents and sister in April; deportation to Auschwitz in May; separation from his mother and sister; sadistic treatment by Nazi guards; the pervasive stench of burning flesh (he could not eat meat for many years); their transfer to Buchenwald, then Tröglitz; arduous slave labor; his father's beating because he excused prisoners due to illness; return to Buchenwald in September; his father's selection for death; transfer to camps in Weimar, Leipzig, and a third location; volunteering as an electrician; helping each other in his group; being left during a death march in April 1945; two Wehrmacht officers bringing him to Theresienstadt; liberation by Soviet troops in May; many prisoner deaths from eating; traveling to Budapest; and returning home to seek relatives (none survived). Dr. S. reflects upon numbing himself to atrocities and deaths in the camps and shows family photographs.

Author/Creator
S., Norbert, 1923-
Published
New York, N.Y. : A Living Memorial to the Holocaust-Museum of Jewish Heritage, 1994
Interview Date
April 5, 1994.
Locale
Romania
Cavnic (Romania)
Petrova (Romania)
Budapest (Hungary)
Timiṣoara (Romania)
Oradea (Romania)
Cluj-Napoca (Romania)
Language
German
Copies
2 copies: 3/4 in dub; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
Cite As
Norbert S. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2954). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.