Nachman Z. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3646)

Videotape testimony of Nachman Z., who was born in Łęczyca, Poland in 1918, one of eight children. He recalls attending cheder; his brothers moving to Łódź; joining them with the rest of his family in 1933; joining Betar; attending their summer camp; working with his brothers in Ruda Pabianicka; German invasion in 1939; fleeing with his brothers as far as Pszczonów; hiding there briefly, then returning to Łódź; entrusting some of their valuables with two non-Jews; forced labor for a day in Kochanówka; a German warning him of a round-up; hiding with a friend; ghettoization in May 1940; living with seventeen others (his brothers and their spouses) in a small apartment with no indoor plumbing (his parents had joined his sisters in Warsaw and none survived); working in the post office and a sausage factory; a meeting with Ḥayim Rumkowski, head of the Judenrat; hiding during round-ups; receiving photographs from his friend Mendel Grossman and hiding them; arranging for Grossman to photograph the child of Aron Jakubowicz, a Judenrat official; being selected with a large group to clean up the ghetto after the final deportation in summer 1944; building a bunker and hiding with five others; liberation by Soviet troops in January 1945; retrieving photographs and papers documenting the ghetto; testifying at the trial of Hans Biebow (the German head of the Łódź ghetto) trial; receiving his family's valuables back from one friend, but not the other; and conveying documents and photographs to the newly formed Jewish Commission on which he worked. Mr. Z. discusses episodes of resistance and punishments; those who judge Rumkowski and the Judenrats; and perspectives and errors of specific historians.