- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Hellmut S., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1928. He recalls his parents' careers as musicians; losing their jobs due to anti-Jewish laws; piano and violin lessons; excitement at Nazi parades; singing in a Jüdischer Kulturbund youth choir; attending a Jewish school; his father arranging emigration to Palestine for his two daughters from a previous marriage; obtaining visas for Manchuria; witnessing mass destruction and synagogue burnings following Kristallnacht; departing on November 21, 1938; the long ship journey from Naples to Shanghai; traveling to Harbin; benign treatment by the Japanese; studying violin; Soviet invasion in 1945; not being able to leave due to the civil war; working as a musician in Mongolia; returning to Harbin; traveling to Tianjin in 1949, then to Israel, with assistance from the United Nations; playing violin with Isaac Stern and in an orchestra conducted by Leonard Bernstein; his parents' emigration to the United States in 1956; not being able to leave due to the Sinai War; joining them in 1957; returning to Berlin in August 1961; playing in a philharmonic orchestra; marriage to a non-Jew in 1963 (she converted); the births of two children; and bringing his parents to join him in Germany. Mr. S. discusses feeling at home in Germany; he and his parents not receiving reparations; belonging to the Jewish community; and his book.
- Author/Creator
- S., Hellmut, 1928-
- Published
- Potsdam, Germany : Moses Mendelssohn Zentrum für europäisch-jüdische Studien, Universität Potsdam, 1996
- Interview Date
- March 18, March 30, and April 23, 1996.
- Locale
- Germany
Berlin (Germany)
Naples (Italy)
Shanghai (China)
Harbin (China)
Mongolia
Tianjin (China)
Israel
- Cite As
- Hellmut S. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3426). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Bräuer, Stefanie, interviewer.
Lipphardt, Veronika, interviewer.
- Notes
-
Related publication: Saitensprünge : die ungewöhnlichen Erinnerungen eines Musikers, der 1938 von Berlin nach China fliehen musste, 1949 nach Israel einwanderte, ab 1956 in den USA lebte und schliesslich 1961 zurückkehrte--als Erster Geiger der Berliner Philharmoniker / Hellmut Stern. Berlin : Transit, c1990.
This testimony is in German.
