Hillel K. Holocaust testimony (HVT-69) interviewed by Dori Laub and Laurel Vlock,

Videorecording testimony of Hillel K., born in Kraków in 1923, a distinguished psychiatrist who has dedicated his life to the study and treatment of Holocaust survivors and their families. He speaks of his prewar involvement in the socialist-zionist movement; his escape to Mielec at the outbreak of the war; his return to Kraków after being forced to work for the Germans; spiritual resistance of the Jewish community of Kraków; his flight to Dobczyce upon the ghettoization of Kraków; his internment in the Płaszów labor camp; and his escape to Wieliczka, where he arranged to have his parents join him. He relates being caught and sent back to Płaszów; his escape back to Wieliczka; and his return to Kraków with his mother. He describes conditions in the Kraków ghetto; his slave labor in various camps; the sustaining relationship with his mother, who remained in the Kraków ghetto; and resistance and the liquidation of the Kraków ghetto, during which his mother was taken to her death. He recalls Oskar Schindler, who protected the Jewish slave laborers in his factory; his return to Płaszów, and from there through Auschwitz to Dresden; the death march to Litoměřice; his liberation from Theresienstadt; his postwar illness and recovery; and his emigration to Palestine. Throughout his testimonyDR. K. points out the importance of humor, friendship, prayer, poetry and songs in the camps and he notes the few instances of kindness exhibited by Germans.