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Marcel W. Holocaust testimony (HVT-463) interviewed by Sylvia Abrams,

Oral History | Fortunoff Collection ID: HVT-463

Videotape testimony of Marcel W., who was born in Kraków, Poland in approximately 1926. He recounts his family's restaurant business; participating in Akiba; German invasion; anti-Jewish restrictions; obtaining papers as a non-Jew from a German restaurant customer; working for him; his parents and sisters leaving for his grandfather's town; providing work permits for friends; seeing a letter identifying him as a Jew; entering the ghetto, fearing denouncement; working outside the ghetto; smuggling goods into the ghetto; transfer to Płaszów; a mass shooting; transfer to Schindler's factory; Schindler protecting the prisoners from beatings; return to Płaszów; transfer to Mauthausen; slave labor in the quarry; seeing American POWs; transfer to Linz; public hanging of Soviet POWs; a severe beating for "stealing"; liberation by United States troops in May 1945; recuperating in Linz; living in Italy, England, then Belgium, where he reunited with an aunt; emigration to the United States in 1952; and marriage to an American. Mr. W. discusses losing hope several times in camps, even contemplating suicide; feeling like a "dead person" at liberation; and visiting two aunts in Kraków in 1975. He shows documents.

Author/Creator
W., Marcel, 1926?-
Published
Cleveland, Ohio : National Council of Jewish Women, Holocaust Archive Project, 1984
Interview Date
December 13, 1984.
Locale
Poland
Kraków
Austria
Kraków (Poland)
Linz (Austria)
Italy
England
Belgium
Language
English
Copies
2 copies: 3/4 in. dub; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
Cite As
Marcel W. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-463). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.