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Josef K. Holocaust testimony (HVT-2110) interviewed by Elliot Perry,

Oral History | Fortunoff Collection ID: HVT-2110

Videotape testimony of Josef K., who was born in Lask, Poland in 1927. He recalls his father's military service; antisemitic harassment; visiting relatives in Łódź; attending school for three years; spending summers in Kolumna; his father's refusal to emigrate to join relatives in Palestine; German invasion; his father's deportation to a labor camp (they never saw him again); forced labor; public hangings; ghettoization; deportation of the Jews in August 1942, including his mother and sister; being selected with his other sister for transfer to the Łódź ghetto; slave labor; helping each other find extra food; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau in August 1944; seeing his sister for one last time after her head was shaved; transfer to Buna/Monowitz; improved conditions; smuggling and trading; Allied bombings; British POWs leaving them food; a death march, then train transfer to Dora; shootings and hangings; transfer to Bergen-Belsen; liberation by British troops; revenge taken by Russian POWs; assistance from the Red Cross; depression upon realizing so few had survived; living in Feldafing and Landsberg displaced persons camps; illegal emigration to Palestine via Marseille; incarceration on Cyprus; serving in the 1948 Israel-Arab War; marriage to a British women in 1954; emigration to Britain; and raising three sons. Mr. K. notes never sharing his story with his children and the difficulty of describing the atrocities he witnessed. He shows photographs.

Author/Creator
K., Josef, 1927-
Published
London, England : British Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1992
Interview Date
November 4, 1992.
Locale
Poland
Łask
Łódź
Łask (Poland)
Łódź (Poland)
Kolumna (Łask, Poland)
Palestine
Cyprus
Marseille (France)
Israel
Language
English
Copies
2 copies: 3/4 in. dub; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
Cite As
Josef K. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2110). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
 
View in Yale University Library Catalog: http://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/4296405
Record last modified: 2018-05-30 11:33:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/hvt4296405