Harry J. Holocaust testimony (HVT-4344) interviewed by Joanne Weiner Rudof

Videotape testimony of Harry J., who was born in Częstochowa, Poland in 1932, the second youngest of eight siblings. He recounts their relative affluence and orthodoxy; German invasion; ghettoization; hiding in a bunker with his family during round-ups; one brother's deportation to Treblinka; smuggling themselves into the small ghetto; hiding with his younger brother, then with his mother and younger brother; his mother ordering him to join his sisters at HASAG Pelzery, knowing the younger boy could not survive; slave labor in a munitions factory; visiting his sisters; their “release” in January 1945; walking to Herby; separation from his sisters; train transport to Gross-Rosen, Dora, then Bergen-Belsen; liberation by British troops; many prisoners dying; finding food in a nearby village; transfer to Celle displaced persons camp; moving to Gardenlegen, to Zeilsheim to join his four surviving sisters, then to Föhrenwald; emigration to the United States in summer 1949; and two sisters joining him later (the other two went to Israel). Mr. J. discusses his education and seldom sharing his story with his children.