- Summary
- Videotape testimony of David W., who was born in 1922 in Kraków, Poland, one of three children. He recounts attending Jewish and public schools; beatings because he was Jewish; German invasion; fleeing east for several weeks with his brother; anti-Jewish restrictions; forced labor; ghettoization in 1941; his parents' deportation (he never saw them again); incarceration in Płaszów; public hangings and shootings; transfer to Auschwitz for less than a day, then to Mauthausen; meaningless slave labor carrying rocks; transfer to St. Valentin; slave labor in a tank factory; a non-Jewish acquaintance from Kraków throwing him cigarettes; exchanging them for bread; an Allied bombing in which he was wounded; transfer back to Mauthausen; observing cannibalized corpses; a death march to Wels and Gunskirchen; liberation by United States troops; living in a displaced persons camp in Linz; contracting typhus; convalescing for several weeks; learning his sister and brother had been killed; meeting his future wife; moving to Bad Ischl, then Ebelsberg displaced persons camps; and emigration to the United States in 1949, with assistance from HIAS. Mr. W. discusses only thinking about food and his indifference to life in camps; continuing problems resulting from his bombing wound; not sharing his experiences with his children; and visiting graves and memorials with his wife in Kraków, Płaszów, and Auschwitz.
- Author/Creator
- W., David, 1922-
- Published
- Union, N.J. : Kean College Oral Testimonies Project, 1988
- Interview Date
- May 26, 1988.
- Locale
- Poland
Kraków
Kraków (Poland)
- Cite As
- David W. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-1246). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Weinstein, Bernard, interviewer.
