Eli C. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3628)

Videotape testimony of Eli C., who was born in Vienna, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in 1917. He recounts participating in Blau-Weiss; working at a Zionist summer camp with Teddy Kollek; his brother's emigration to Palestine in 1934; attending university; antisemitic harassment; Anschluss; warnings from their non-Jewish landlord of German raids; moving to Zurich, then Geneva; arrest in September 1939; expulsion from Basel to a Gestapo prison in Lörrach; transfer from prison to prison en route to Sachsenhausen; forced labor in a brick factory; beatings, hunger, and lack of sanitation; public executions; release in September 1940 because his mother documented he would leave for Shanghai; returning home; traveling with his parents to Graz; illegally entering Yugoslavia; traveling to Zagreb via Maribor; the Jewish community assigning them to live with a non-Jew in Ruma; German invasion; Germans and Ustaša registering Jews; deportation in cattle cars to Zagreb; the Jewish community securing their release through bribes; obtaining false papers; traveling to a village in Italian-occupied territory; arrest; imprisonment in Fiume (presently Rijeka); transfer eighteen months later to Ferramonti; receiving Red Cross packages; escaping; hiding with villagers; liberation by United States troops; emigration to Palestine via Bari and Alexandria; incarceration in ʻAtlit by the British; release; and serving in the Palmaḥ. Mr. C. discusses relations between national and political groups in Sachsenhausen; Polish Jews praying; scars from mistreatment; the kindness of the Italians; lack of interest and disbelief from the Israeli public about his experiences until the 1970s; sharing only parts of his story with his children; and a recent visit to Berlin.