- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Shlomo L., who was born in Kaunas, Lithuania in 1930, the older of two children. He recounts his family's affluence; attending a Jewish school; participation in Betar; Soviet occupation; his father's workers testifying to protect their his from deportation as bourgeoisie; attending a Soviet school; German invasion in June 1941; hearing mass shootings from the Seventh Fort; ghettoization; his father's round-up in a mass killing of intelligentsia; public hangings; trading valuables for necessities; raising chickens and rabbits; playing soccer; attending concerts and shows; a selection and mass killing on October 28, 1941, in which none of his family were taken; attending carpentry school in 1942, then assignment to a carpentry workshop due to family connections; disappearance of his grandmother, sister, and cousin in 1944 when he and his mother were at work; rumors they had been killed at the Ninth Fort; deportation with his mother, grandfather, aunt, and uncle to Stutthof in summer 1944; separation from his mother and aunt; and transfer to Kaufering, then Landsberg.
Mr. L. recalls separation from his uncle and grandfather when he was transferred to Dachau with 130 boys; transfer of the group two weeks later to Auschwitz/Birkenau; one boy escaping en route; slave labor pulling carts; assistance from Polish boys; a death march in January 1945, then train transfer to Mauthausen; witnessing cannibalism; a march to Gunskirchen; abandonment by the guards; assistance from the Red Cross; liberation by United States troops; traveling to a displaced persons camp in Munich; hospitalization for eight months; illegal emigration to Palestine in 1946 via Marseille; serving in the Palmaḥ in the 1948 Arab-Israel war; training as an artillery officer; his military career; marriage in 1957; and the births of three children. Mr. L. discusses being the sole survivor of his family; groups relations in the camps; the importance to his survival of not feeling alone because he was with the boys from Kaunas; losing his belief in God due to observing the killings of even the most religious Jews; chronic health problems due to his experiences; and an annual survivor gathering on October 28 commemorating the Kaunas mass killing. He shows photographs and documents.
- Author/Creator
- L., Shlomo, 1930-
- Published
- Tel Aviv, Israel : Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1996
- Interview Date
- November 7, 1996.
- Locale
- Lithuania
Kaunas
Kaunas (Lithuania)
Munich (Germany)
Marseille (France)
Palestine
- Cite As
- Shlomo L. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3867). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Notes
-
This testimony is in Hebrew.
