Kurt W. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3124) interviewed by Cathy S. Gelbin and Maximilian Preisler,

Videotape testimony of Kurt W., who was born in Würzburg, Germany in 1920, raised in Weikersheim until 1922, then in Ostróda. He recounts his family's orthodoxy; cordial relations with non-Jews; membership in Die Falken, the Social Democratic Party youth group; antisemitic harassment in school beginning in 1933; completing high school in 1935; moving to Breslau (Wrocław) for a masonry apprenticeship; his younger sister being sent on a kindertransport to the United States in 1937; his father's arrest in 1938, his release upon promising to emigrate; destruction on Kristallnacht, including burning of the synagogue he attended; moving to Berlin; his parents joining him; obtaining financial support and assistance from the Jewish Hilfsverein; obtaining visas for Uruguay in Turin; emigration with his parents to Montevideo in December 1938; joining a German anti-fascist group; emigrating to Houston, Texas in 1947; reunion with his sister; marriage to a German emigrée; contacts with the local Communist Party; incurring his relatives' anger for joining strikers at his uncle's company where he was employed; his relatives alerting authorities resulting in his and his wife's deportation in 1951 for their Communist Party contacts; and settling in Hamburg. Mr. W. discusses ceasing to be orthodox after the war, and identifying as both a German and a Jew. He shows documents.