Israel A. Holocaust testimony (HVT-91) interviewed by Laurel Vlock,

Videotape testimony of Israel A., who was born in Plotsk (Płock), Poland in 1925. He relates his family's transfer to the Starachowice ghetto in 1940; the worsening conditions there in 1942; and the action of the Einsatzkommando and subsequent deportation of his parents and brother to Treblinka, while he and his older brother were driven to a factory which comprised the Starachowice concentration camp. He tells of the brutal conditions in the camp (he later testified against its gestapo head at the Frankfurt war crimes trials) where, eluding selections and mass murders, he remained until the camp's liquidation following an attempted revolt in 1944. He was subsequently sent to Auschwitz. Mr. A. relates his shock upon arrival, when, from the quarantine camp in which he was initially interned, he could hear the sounds of the liquidation of the Zigeunerlager (Gypsy Lager). Assigned to the detail which cleaned the toilets and the gas chambers after the bodies were removed, he graphically describes the latter. He relates the evacuation of his unit to Stutthof in October, 1944, and speaks of the horror of conditions in that camp, from where he was sent to work on a nearby airfield. Mr. A. also speaks of helping to found an organization of survivors in Boston, despite resistance from the community.