Michael R. Holocaust testimony (HVT-26) interviewed by Laurel Vlock and Dori Laub,

Videotape testimony of Michael R., who was born in Dąbrowa Górnicza, Poland, circa 1928. He speaks of life in the community before the war; the effects of the German occupation; the dispersal and deaths of members of his family, while he and his brother tried to hide together; and his eventual arrest and torture in Katowice. He relates his deportation to Birkenau and vividly recalls conditions there, where he saw subjects of medical experiments, was hospitalized after contracting typhus, and, after his recovery, worked in the "Canada" Kommando. He remembers the camp orchestra as well as the "theme songs" of Birkenau and of Buchenwald, where he was later interned and where he was liberated. Mr. R. also reflects on the silence he has kept with regard to his wartime experiences (which he here relates with an unusual degree of irony and gallows humor) and on his present cynicism and basic mistrust of others.