Advanced Search

Learn About The Holocaust

Special Collections

My Saved Research

Login

Register

Help

Skip to main content

Hans L. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3424) interviewed by Dieter Heger and Irene Diekmann,

Oral History | Fortunoff Collection ID: HVT-3424

Videotape testimony of Hans L., who was born in Stralsund, Germany in 1926 to a Christian mother and Jewish father. He recounts his father's service in World War I; his family's assimilation (they celebrated Easter and Christmas); moving to Potsdam in 1936 due to antisemitism, hoping to be anonymous there; relatives who were Nazis, including his maternal aunt; expulsion from school in 1937; attending a Jewish school; observing the destruction in Berlin after Kristallnacht; his mother's refusal to divorce his father despite official pressure; being assigned to work in a Borsig munitions factory in 1941; imprisonment with his father at Rosenstrasse in February 1943; release after a demonstration by non-Jewish spouses and relatives, including his mother and aunt; occasionally removing their stars to attend cultural events; his parents' involvement in a resistance group; threatened exposure in 1944; hiding in his aunt's home; leaving in spring 1945 when soldiers were billeted there; incarceration with his father in a camp for "Geltungsjuden"; returning to their home in Potsdam after the war; his aunt's arrest by Soviets; her release when they verified her support of them despite her Nazi party membership; his father's arrest in 1947; their emigration to Israel in 1949; military service; problems because his mother was not Jewish; and their return to Berlin in 1966. He shows photographs.

Author/Creator
L., Hans, 1926-
Published
Potsdam, Germany : Moses Mendelssohn Zentrum für europäisch-jüdische Studien, Universität Potsdam, 1996
Interview Date
March 23, 1996.
Locale
Germany
Berlin
Stralsund (Germany)
Berlin (Germany)
Potsdam (Germany)
Rosenstrasse (Berlin, Germany)
Israel
Language
German
Copies
2 copies: Betacam SP dub; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
Cite As
Hans L. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3424). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
 
View in Yale University Library Catalog: http://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/4291671
Record last modified: 2018-05-29 11:47:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/hvt4291671