Tobias S. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3004) interviewed by Elisabeth Inchusta and Frederic Fichefet,

Videotape testimony of Tobias S., who was born in Tarńow, Poland in 1925, one of two children. He recounts his family's move to Antwerp in 1926; attending a Jewish school; a one-year visit with relatives in Poland in 1935; attending a Jewish school there; attending a Talmudic high school in Belgium; German invasion; fleeing with his family to France; returning after encountering German soldiers; anti-Jewish restrictions including closing of his school and wearing the star; his sister's disappearance (he never saw her again); illegally traveling with his parents to Paris, then south using false papers; their arrest in Bourges; transfer to Pithiviers, then Drancy; deportation in August 1942 to Koźle; separation from his mother (he never saw her again); slave labor in Sakrau building highways; becoming very close to his father; starvation suppressing all other thoughts; transfer to Spytkowice and Trzebinia in winter 1943; separation from his father; assistance from a man from Antwerp when he lost hope; his father assisting him when he became ill; an opera performance giving him hope; moving to his father's barrack; his father buying extra food from Polish civilian workers which helped them survive the cold and starvation; a German transferring him to a privileged position; sharing extra food with his father; transfer in November 1943 to Birkenau; learning of the gas chambers; losing hope his mother and sister were alive; his father's selection for killing in January 1944; transfer to Buna/Monowitz in March; a German prisoner providing him with extra food; encountering British POWs; several privileged positions; assisting a cousin; a death march then train transport to Dora in January 1945; slave labor making V1 rockets; public hangings; transfer to Bergen-Belsen; encountering his cousin again; liberation by British troops; and repatriation. Mr. S. discusses his father's strength in the camps; the inability of language to convey starvation; pervasive painful memories; losing his belief in God; sharing his experiences with his children; traveling with three of them to Auschwitz; speaking at schools; and his belief that nothing is learned from history. He shows a photograph.