Erich L. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3703)

Videotape testimony of Erich L., who was born in Ostrava, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (presently Czech Republic) in 1911, one of four children. He recounts attending German school; his father's death when he was nine; studying to be a window decorator, then working in 1930 as a decorative painter in Hamburg; experiencing antisemitism there; returning to Ostrava; working as a poster painter; participating in Tehelet-Lavan; military service; his uncle's emigration to Palestine; meeting his wife in 1934; marriage in Andrychów (her hometown) in 1937; his mother's deportation to Poland in 1938; moving to Prague; joining Hechalutz; placement by them on a farm in Dobešice; moving to Písek; train deportation in 1942 to Bohušovice; walking to Theresienstadt from there; living in the Hechalutz barrack; working as a sign painter; trading drawings for extra food; transfer to Germany for forced labor in 1944; and returning to Theresienstadt in March 1945. Mr. L. shows and discusses his drawings of life in Theresienstadt and notes destroying them fearing their discovery, then recreating them after the war.