Oscar R. Holocaust testimony (HVT-44) interviewed by Dori Laub and Nanette Auerhahn

Videotape testimony of Oscar R., who was born in Vienna of Hungarian parents in 1910. He describes Vienna on the eve of the German invasion; his medical studies in an atmosphere of increasing antisemitism; his marriage to a fellow medical student in 1937; and his emigration to the United States (via Copenhagen) in 1938. He tells of his voluntary enlistment in the American army after he became a United States citizen and his 1945 arrival at Mauthausen, after the Germans had already fled, where he remained for a month. Showing photographs which he took at the time, he discusses the condition of the survivors; the initial confusion following liberation; revenge taken by former prisoners against their former captors; and his own reactions to what he saw in the camp. He also relates his present work with survivors, noting the prevalence of lasting psychological repercussions of their wartime experiences.