Alfred C. Holocaust testimony (HVT-751) interviewed by Diane Fagelman and Peter Ullman

Videotape testimony of Alfred C., who was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany in 1924, the younger of two brothers. He recounts his grandfather was a cantor and his father an opera singer; his father's dismissal from his job in 1933 due to Nazi anti-Jewish laws; their resulting poverty; assistance from the Jewish community; attending a Jewish school; antisemitic harassment and boycotts; obtaining documents for two from relatives in the United States; his father's and brother's emigration in June 1938; his father and brother obtaining visas for him and his mother; traveling to Hamburg on Kristallnacht; the ship journey to the U.S.; his father's work as an entertainer; military draft; assignment to intelligence training due to his fluent German; deployment in Europe with the 78th Infantry Division and following the 4th Armored Division; interrogating prisoners in Germany; visiting Buchenwald shortly after liberation; piles of corpses, the overwhelming stench, and emaciated survivors; following Dwight Eisenhower and George Patton when they visited; searching for war criminals in Berlin; arresting Mildred Gillars (“Axis Sally”); meeting his brother in Frankfurt; visiting their apartment; finding and shipping home family belongings, including a piano; marriage to the daughter of his parents' friends from Frankfurt; his daughter's birth in 1953; and his career as a teacher. Mr. C. discusses the importance of his family's musical heritage to his life.