Leopold Z. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-631) interviewed by Itzik Nakhmen Gottesman and Linda Pasternak,

Videotape testimony of Leopold Z., who was born in Bautzen, Germany, in 1922 and moved to Breslau as a child. Mr. Z. describes his childhood and religious education; the beginning of the war and his family's fatally passive reaction; forced labor in a factory near Breslau; and the deportation of his entire family, except himself and one of his four brothers, to a town near Lublin. He tells of being taken in by an orphanage, where he and his brother were given false French papers; their betrayal and subsequent arrest; and their year-long imprisonment while awaiting trial for treason. Mr. Z. details the events of the trial, during which he succeeded in exonerating his brother, with the result that Mr. Z. was sent to a correctional facility while his brother was immediately deported to Auschwitz. He relates his transfer to the Gestapo prison in Breslau and the terrible conditions there; his transfer to, and life in, Auschwitz, where he was saved by two special friendships; the death march from Auschwitz to Dachau; his escape during the evacuation of Dachau; and his liberation. He also recalls his postwar experiences in displaced persons camps and his reunion with his oldest brother, who had emigrated to Palestine before the war.