- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Albert K., who was born in Forth, Germany in 1923, the youngest of three sons, one of whom was deaf. He recalls cordial relations with non-Jews until 1933; expulsion from school in 1936 due to anti-Jewish policies; attending a Jewish school in Nuremberg; his hearing brother's emigration to Argentina; moving to Nuremberg in 1938; destruction of Jewish property on Kristallnacht; assistance from non-Jewish friends; futile efforts to emigrate; internment with his family in Langwasser in November 1941; deportation to Jungfernhof in December; his mother hiding him when he was ill; secretly baking matzo; a mass killing including his parents in March 1942; transfer with his brother to the Rīga ghetto in 1943; clandestine services conducted by Rabbi Joseph Carlebach; public hangings; hospitalization in summer 1943; deportation with his brother to Auschwitz/Birkenau in November; hiding his brother's deafness; transfer to Buna/Monowitz; slave labor for I.G. Farben; his brother's selection for gassing in March 1944 while he (Albert) was hospitalized; assistance from British POWs and friends; a death march then train transport in open cars to Mauthausen, then Sachsenhausen in January 1945; Czechs throwing them food en route; slave labor in an airplane factory; liberation from a death march by United States troops in May 1945; living in Schwerin, Lübeck, and the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp; assistance from UNRRA and the Joint; moving to Frankfurt; writing of his experiences in 1946; emigration to join relatives in the United States in February 1947; marriage; the births of two children; and a joyful reunion with his brother in 1969. He discusses permanent friendships made in camps; refusal to be separated from his deaf brother; non-survivor's lack of interest in his experiences; and pervasive painful memories. Mr. K. shows photographs and documents.
- Author/Creator
- K., Albert, 1923-
- Published
- New York, N.Y. : A Living Memorial to the Holocaust-Museum of Jewish Heritage, 1991
- Interview Date
- January 2, 1991.
- Locale
- Latvia
Rīga
Poland
Germany
Forth (Germany)
Nuremberg (Germany)
Schwerin (Germany)
Lübeck (Germany)
Frankfurt am Main (Germany)
- Cite As
- Albert K. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-1752). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Mann, Devorah, interviewer.
