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Menachem G. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3477) interviewed by Nathan Beyrak,

Oral History | Fortunoff Collection ID: HVT-3477

Videotape testimony of Menachem G., who was born in Kzepice, Poland in 1914, one of five children. He recounts attending Jewish school in Częstochowa; working as a driver in his family's bus company; participating in Betar; antisemitic violence; military draft in 1937; German invasion in 1939; capture as a prisoner of war; incarceration in Żarki; transfer to Germany; separation of Jews from Poles; forced labor building a lake; receiving extra food for repairing vehicles; transfer to Lublin; the Jewish community obtaining the release of Jewish prisoners; returning home; incarceration in Gross Sarne for eight months; slave labor with Soviet POWs building roads; hospitalization in Sosnowiec when he was injured; returning to Kzepice; hiding his mother during a round-up; securing the release of his father and nephew; moving with his family to Sosnowiec; joining the Jewish resistance; serving in the Jewish police; ghettoization; his family's round-up and release; his parents' deaths; obtaining false papers; hiding in a bunker when the ghetto was liquidated in August 1943; escaping with others; hiding briefly with a non-Jewish friend; traveling to Katowice, then Opole; posing as a non-Jew and working as an auto mechanic; visiting Jews in Zdzieszowice; joining Armia Ludowa the Polish, the Polish underground; joining his future wife in Katowice in February, 1945; liberation by Soviet troops; traveling to Częstochowa, then Sosnowiec; learning a niece was the only other family survivor; working for a year in Warsaw, then in Katowice, still living as a non-Jew; and emigration to Israel in 1948. He shows documents.

Author/Creator
G., Menachem, 1914-
Published
Tel Aviv, Israel : Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1992
Interview Date
September 17, 1992.
Locale
Poland
Germany
Soviet Union
Sosnowiec (Województwo Śląskie)
Russia
Krzepice (Poland)
Częstochowa (Poland)
Żarki (Poland)
Lublin (Poland)
Sosnowiec (Województwo Śląskie, Poland)
Katowice (Poland)
Opole (Poland)
Zdzieszowice (Poland)
Language
Hebrew
Copies
2 copies: 3/4 in. dub; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
Cite As
Menachem G. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3477). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.