Zeev F. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3329)

Videotape testimony of Zeev F., who was born in Łódź, Poland in 1926. He recalls his family's affluence; his sister's birth in 1930; attending a Jewish private school; German invasion in September 1939; anti-Jewish restrictions, including confiscation of his father's business and schools closing; ghettoization; severe hunger and cold; working in a sewing workshop; his father's death; his father's friend arranging his reassignment to a kitchen, thus providing the family with more food; joining Hashomer Hatzair, an “oasis” in a horrible environment; meeting his future wife at a meeting; reassignment to a more privileged position for the ghetto administration; receiving extra food and other privileges from a German Jew; deportation with his mother, sister, and aunt in August 1944 to Auschwitz/Birkenau; their selection for gassing; his assignment to a group of 144 young men to care for horses; eating food intended for the horses; mutual support and sharing within his group; hospitalization for a broken leg; good care by the prisoner-doctors; release after two weeks; a death march in January 1945 to Gross-Rosen, then Bolkenhain; train transfer to Buchenwald; liberation by United States troops in April 1945; recuperating from tuberculosis in Switzerland for eighteen months; emigration to Palestine in 1947; and his anguish resulting from Israeli callousness to his experiences. Mr. F. discusses numbing himself to camp conditions, thus allowing him to function; continuing painful memories; and not wanting his children to carry the burden of his pain.