William S. Holocaust testimony (HVT-2397) interviewed by Diane M. Plotkin,
Videotape testimony of William S., who was born in Kraków, Poland, one of three children. He recounts German invasion; fleeing east; receiving a gun from a Polish officer; arriving in Lʹviv; Soviets disarming him and sending them home; forced labor breaking rocks; ghettoization; clandestinely leaving the ghetto to smuggle food for his family; deportations including his parents, brother, and his girlfriend's family; marriage in the ghetto; transfer to Płaszów; separation from his wife and sister; visiting them; public executions; being beaten for defending a fellow prisoner; his wife's deportation; transfer to Auschwitz, then Rajsko; being used once for specious medical experiments; observing sadistic "experiments" on other prisoners; working as the prisoner-doctor's assistant, then in the garage; smuggling meat and bribing the kapo with it; sharing extra food with a cousin; transfer to Gross-Rosen; brief hospitalization; escape and capture, then escaping again; joining a transport to Buchenwald; liberation by United States troops; hospitalization; returning to Kraków; reunion with his wife; traveling to Austria; living in a displaced persons camp; assistance from UNRRA; his son's birth; emigration to the United States in 1949; and the births of two more children.
- Published
- Dallas, Tex. : Memorial Center for Holocaust Studies, 1991
- Interview Date
- October 22, 1991.
- Locale
- Poland
Kraków
Kraków (Poland)
Lʹviv (Ukraine) - Language
-
English
- Copies
- 4 copies: 3/4 in. submaster; Betacam SP restoration master; Betacam SP restoration submaster; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
- Cite As
- William S. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2397). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
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View in Yale University Library Catalog: http://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/4296806
Record last modified: 2018-05-29 11:58:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/hvt4296806