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Szapsia S. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3468) interviewed by Yannis Thanassekos and Hessel Daalder,

Oral History | Fortunoff Collection ID: HVT-3468

Videotape testimony of Szapsia S., who was born in Tomaszów Mazowiecki, Poland in 1925 the oldest of four children. He recalls his large, close extended family; antisemitic violence; his father's military draft in 1939; German invasion; briefly seeing his father with other POWs; learning he had been murdered in a mass shooting; his mother sending him to his great aunt; forced labor; a brief visit to his family (he never saw them again); deportation of his aunt and relatives; living with his cousin in a ghetto; a non-Jewish worker providing him with extra food; friendship with two prisoners; sharing food with each other; transfer to Częstochowa; slave labor in a munitions factory; transfer to Buchenwald, then Dora in January 1945; hospitalization; surgery; his friends helping him; transfer to Bergen-Belsen; being shot while stealing food; his friends keeping him alive (he is blind in one eye from the injury); liberation by British troops; living in Celle displaced persons camp, Munich, Feldafing, and Bergen-Belsen; reunion with a cousin; emigration to Brussels in February 1946; marriage in 1948; teaching his son Yiddish, but not about Judaism (he lost his belief when his family was killed); living in Melbourne; and returning to Belgium. He discusses strong bonds with concentration camp friends.

Author/Creator
S., Szapsia, 1925-
Published
Brussels, Belgium : Fondation Auschwitz, 1995
Interview Date
April 3, 1995.
Locale
Poland
Tomaszów Mazowiecki (Poland)
Munich (Germany)
Brussels (Belgium)
Melbourne (Vic.)
Language
French
Copies
2 copies: 3/4 in. dub; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
Cite As
Szapsia S. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3468). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
 
View in Yale University Library Catalog: http://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/4291797
Record last modified: 2018-05-29 11:58:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/hvt4291797