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Chaim O. Holocaust testimony (HVT-2375) interviewed by David Herman and Elliot Perry,

Oral History | Fortunoff Collection ID: HVT-2375

Videotape testimony of Chaim O., who was born in Sosnowiec, Poland, one of six children. He recalls attending Polish school and cheder; antisemitic violence; participating in No'ar ha-Tsiyoni; he and his siblings spending summers with their grandmother in Miechów Charsznica; German invasion; briefly fleeing to Charsznica, then returning in late winter; forced labor locally; one sister being taken to Kraków; a round-up in fall 1942; a mass killing; transfer to a field near Słomniki; a child's birth; selection with his father and brother for transfer to Płaszów; their escape to Charsznica; his father arranging for them to hide with a Pole; being caught (the others succeeded in hiding); incarceration in the Miechów ghetto, then Płaszów; slave labor with cousins; a Kol Nidrei service; hospitalization for typhus; transfer to Skarżysko; working with picric acid for several months; starvation; a public hanging; transfer to Buchenwald, then Schlieben; slave labor in a HASAG munitions factory; a brief prisoner strike; a rabbi reciting Neilah on Yom Kippur; transfer to Theresienstadt; sharing stolen food with a friend; liberation by Soviet troops; hospitalization; losing his memory of events from May to July; transfer to Windermere, England via Prague; learning his sister had survived; nightmares; transfer to Glasgow; studying dentistry; locating his sister in Israel; learning his family in hiding was killed in December 1944, but his brother survived; visiting them in Israel in 1953; marriage in London; serving in the British military in Germany; and raising four children. Mr. O. discusses camp life; Windermere's healing effect; sharing his experiences with his children; retaining his faith and religiosity; and a recent trip to Poland with his sons.

Author/Creator
O., Chaim, 1927-
Published
London, England : British Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1991
Interview Date
January 10, 1991.
Locale
Poland
Miechów
Sosnowiec (Województwo Śląskie, Poland)
Miechów Charsznica (Poland)
Słomniki (Poland)
Prague (Czech Republic)
Windermere (England)
Glasgow (Scotland)
London (England)
Israel
Language
English
Copies
2 copies: 3/4 in. dub; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
Cite As
Chaim O. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2375). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
 
View in Yale University Library Catalog: http://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/4296750
Record last modified: 2018-06-04 13:28:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/hvt4296750