- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Samuel D., who was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1928. He recounts attending Polish and Jewish schools; German invasion; excitement due to his childish perspective; gradually increasing anti-Jewish restrictions; ghettoization; starvation; his father's escape to his childhood village; his father sending a Pole to bring him, his sister, and mother to the village near Magnuszew in spring 1942; incarceration with his father in Jedlińsk; Russian POWs joining German forces; realizing the arbitrary cruelty after his first beating; his father protecting him; their transfer after six months to Skarżysko via Szydłowiec; assignment to Werke C; becoming ill from the picric acid; transfer; receiving extra food from Polish workers; his father's increasing debilitation, then escape (he never saw him again); hiding under a barrack when the sick were "liquidated"; losing his will to live; friendship with two boys (neither survived); evacuation after two years to Częstochowa; transfer six months later to Buchenwald, then Rehmsdorf; assistance from British POWs; train evacuation; Allied bombings; escape and recapture; a death march to Theresienstadt; liberation by Soviet troops; being sent to England with other children; living in Windermere, then several sanitariums for a few years; learning to paint; moving to London; visiting Israel in 1961; marriage; and raising two sons. Mr. D. discusses inter-group relations in the camps; mass killings; depression after visiting Warsaw in 1975; seldom sharing his experiences, even with his children; continuing relations with camp friends; and finding meaning in conveying his experiences through painting.
- Author/Creator
- D., Samuel, 1928-
- Published
- London, England : British Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1990
- Interview Date
- December 6, 1990.
- Locale
- Poland
Warsaw
Germany
Magnuszew (Poland)
Szydłowiec (Województwo Mazowieckie, Poland)
Warsaw (Poland)
Windermere (England)
Israel
- Cite As
- Samuel D. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2361). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Perry, Elliot, interviewer.