Overview
- Summary
- Videotape testimony of William S., who was born in Medzilaborce, Czechoslovakia in 1928, the oldest of five children. He describes his orthodox, middle-class family; attending a Jewish school; assisting at his father's store; his bar mitzvah; cordial relations with non-Jews; anti-Jewish laws, including expropriation of his father's business; deportation with his family to Auschwitz in 1942; remaining with his father (the others were killed); thinking he "was in hell"; forced labor; public executions; assignment to the bricklayers' school in Birkenau; assistance from fellow prisoners; learning of his father's death; hospitalization; being saved from selection by the man in charge; transport to Mauthausen in January 1945; assignment collecting corpses; transfer to another camp; liberation by United States troops; living with friends in Wels; briefly returning home; living in Michalovce for two years; and emigration to the United States, via Vienna, in 1950 with assistance from an American uncle. Mr. S. discusses recovering his bar mitzvah prayer book after the war.
- Published
- Cleveland, Ohio : National Council of Jewish Women, Holocaust Archive Project, 1984
- Interview Date
- August 29, 1984.
- Locale
- Czechoslovakia
Medzilaborce (Slovakia)
Michalovce (Slovakia)
Vienna (Austria)
Wels (Austria) - Cite As
- William S. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-454), Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Copies
- 2 copies: 3/4 in. dub; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
- Physical Description
- 1 videorecording (2 hr., 46 min.) : col
Keywords & Subjects
- Subjects (Local Yale)
- Child survivors.
Mutual aid.
Postwar experiences.
Hospitals in concentration camps. - Subjects
- Video tapes. Holocaust survivors. Men. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives. World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, Jewish. World War, 1939-1945--Children. Jewish children in the Holocaust. World War, 1939-1945--Atrocities. Bar mitzvah. Fathers and sons. Forced labor. Concentration camp inmates--Psychological aspects. Friendship. Czechoslovakia. Medzilaborce (Slovakia) Michalovce (Slovakia) Vienna (Austria) Wels (Austria) Oral histories (document genres) S., William,--1928- Auschwitz (Concentration camp) Birkenau (Concentration camp) Mauthausen (Concentration camp)
Administrative Notes
- Holder of Originals
-
Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
- Special Collection
-
Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
- Link to Yale University Library Catalog:
- http://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/4293756
- Record last modified:
- 2018-06-04 13:28:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/hvt4293756
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