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Jack A. Holocaust testimony (HVT-1364) interviewed by Ann Gadol and Debbie Weinberg,

Oral History | Fortunoff Collection ID: HVT-1364

Videotape testimony of Jack A., who was born in Bełchatów, Poland in 1927, one of four children. He recounts a happy childhood; attending public and Hebrew schools; anti-Jewish violence; German invasion in 1939; anti-Jewish restrictions; his older brother fleeing to Łódź, then Warsaw (he was killed in a bombing); public hanging of ten prominent Jews, including his uncle; ghettoization; his sister's marriage; a round-up; his brother's and grandmother's deportation to Chełmno; forced labor with his father cleaning the ghetto; transfer to the Łódź ghetto with his parents and sister; slave labor; his sister giving birth; pervasive deaths; deportation with his parents, sister, and her child to Auschwitz/Birkenau in 1944; his mother, sister, and her child being selected for death; working with his father; praying daily; transfer four weeks later to Siegmar-Schoenau; slave labor in a factory; his father sharing food; Allied bombings; transfer to Hohenstein-Ernstthal; a death march to Czechoslovakia in April 1945; liberation; transfer to Prague; hospitalization; his father's transfer to Plzeň; not finding him there; returning to Bełchatów; reunion with his father; Poles in their house refusing to return it; antisemitic harassment; rebuilding his father's tannery; a death threat by a Polish paramilitary group; traveling to Łódź, then Germany; living in Freising; his father's remarriage; his sister's birth; visiting his aunt in Sweden in 1948; remaining there; his father's, stepmother's and sister's emigration to Israel; meeting his future wife (a survivor from Bełchatów); emigration to the United States in 1953; marriage; and his father's death from cancer in 1957. He shows photographs.

Author/Creator
A., Jack, 1927-
Published
Dallas, Tex. : Memorial Center for Holocaust Studies, 1987
Interview Date
February 22, 1987 and September 20, 1987.
Locale
Poland
Łódź
Bełchatów
Bełchatów (Poland)
Prague (Czech Republic)
Plzeň (Czech Republic)
Łódź (Poland)
Freising (Germany)
Sweden
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
Jack A. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-1364). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.