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Daniel P. Holocaust testimony (HVT-501) interviewed by Donna Chernin,

Oral History | Fortunoff Collection ID: HVT-501

Videotape testimony of Daniel P., who was born in Ploiești, Romania in 1928, the oldest of three children. He recounts his mother's birth in the United States; his father's employment as an engineer for a United States oil company; his family's assimilated, affluent lifestyle; local fascist antisemitic publications; restrictions, including his expulsion from public school; forced emigration to Belgrade in 1940 because his father was a Yugoslav citizen; German invasion; his father's arrest (they never saw him again); deportation with his grandmother, mother and sisters to Zemun in December 1941; forced labor chopping wood; public execution of children who traded on the black market; a German soldier giving him food; giving it to his sister; his grandmother's selection (they never saw her again); his mother contacting non-Jewish friends to obtain false papers showing she was a non-Jew; their release; his mother selling her jewelry to support them; traveling to Bulgaria; obtaining Swiss travel visas for Turkey; arrival in Istanbul in 1943; living as non-Jews; he and his mother working as translators (his sisters attended school); emigration to the United States in 1948 to attend college; and his sisters and mother joining him. Mr. P. notes his youngest sister did not know she was Jewish until after the war, and credits his mother's ingenuity and force of will for their survival.

Author/Creator
P., Daniel, 1928-
Published
Cleveland, Ohio : National Council of Jewish Women, Holocaust Archive Project, 1984
Interview Date
August 28, 1984.
Locale
Romania
Ploiești (Romania)
Belgrade (Serbia)
Bulgaria
Istanbul (Turkey)
Language
English
Copies
4 copies: 3/4 in. master; Betacam SP restoration master; Betacam SP restoration submaster; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
Cite As
Daniel P. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-501). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.