John B. Holocaust testimony (HVT-243) interviewed by Pam Goodman and Tamar Strauss,

Videotape testimony of John B., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1906. He describes having to wear a star, forced labor, and segregation; being caught in 1943 in the Berlin Aktion; transport to Auschwitz; working in Monowitz, a subcamp of Auschwitz, as a slave laborer for I. G. Farben; hunger and public hangings; and evacuation to Gleiwitz in January 1945. He recalls being saved by a Nazi soldier from a mass execution; pretending to be dead and escaping at night to a Polish farm; being saved by the Polish farmer who also aided ten other Jews; liberation by Russian soldiers; traveling to Łódź and Częstochowa to seek family; working for five months for a Russian farmer; returning to Berlin; marrying a survivor who had been sterilized in Auschwitz; and emigration to the United States. Mr. B. discusses his feeling that his survival was a miracle since no one else in his family survived; his strong will to live in the worst of conditions; his return to Germany in 1970 and subsequent trips; and his feeling that he cannot hate the German people because if he carries hate within himself he is not happy.