- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Otto P, who was born in Trnava, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1923, the youngest of five children. He recounts attending Jewish and public schools; participating in Maccabi; German occupation and Slovak independence; anti-Jewish restrictions and harassment; deportation to a labor camp; escape; returning home; his father arranging for him to work nearby; deportation with his father and brothers to Sered in 1942; separation from one brother (he never saw him again); deportation with his father and brother to Auschwitz/Birkenau; kapos beating prisoners to death; his father's death after two weeks; transfer to a quarry; locating his brother (he died shortly thereafter); receiving extra food from a Sonderkommando; attending a construction school; transfer to Harmęże, then Budy; a prisoner doctor saving his life when he had an infection; transfer back to Auschwitz; a woman from his town arranging a privileged job driving a delivery wagon; a kapo giving him extra food; trading goods with civilians; observing the Sonderkommando uprising; a death march in January 1945 to Karlovy Vary (he rode on a wagon), then a camp near Dresden; posing as a Czech political prisoner; a mass shooting of 200 prisoners; burying the bodies; transfer to Litoměřice via Ústí nad Labem; a Polish prisoner threatening to expose him as Jew; another Pole killing the one who threatened to expose him; train transfer; escape; hiding with a partisan; translating for them (the partisans were killing all the SS they found); returning to Trnava; moving to Bratislava; traveling to Vienna, then Port-de-Bouc; illegal emigration to Palestine; interdiction by the British; being wounded; incarceration in ʻAtlit; visits from his brother; a hunger strike; his release; military draft; marriage; and the births of two children.
- Author/Creator
- P., Otto, 1923-
- Published
- Tel Aviv, Israel : Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1998
- Interview Date
- March 25, 1998 and April 1, 1998.
- Locale
- Czech Republic
Czechoslovakia
Trnava (Slovakia)
Karlovy Vary (Czech Republic)
Ústí nad Labem (Czech Republic)
Vienna (Austria)
Port-de-Bouc (France)
Bratislava (Slovakia)
ʻAtlit (Israel)
Palestine
- Cite As
- Otto P. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3998). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Notes
-
This testimony is in Hebrew.
