- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Manek F. who was born in Będzin, Poland in 1925. He recalls his family's move to Danzig; friendships with German children; exclusion when they joined the Hitler Youth; his bar mitzvah in the Great Synagogue; moving to Łódź; not being able to attend school since he did not speak Polish; and the outbreak of war. Mr. F. relates their move to Warsaw; his father's smuggling food into the ghetto in partnership with well-connected Germans; his father's round-up in 1941; unsuccessful efforts of his German partner to have him released from transport to Treblinka; the Warsaw ghetto uprising; unsuccessful escape attempts through sewers; transport to Majdanek; using his fluency in German to ally himself with a guard who helped him in many ways; assisting his mother and sister; and transfer to Birkenau. He describes the Zigeunerlager (Gypsy Lager); arrivals of French transports; transfer to Jaworzno; being the only German speaker among the wholly Greek prisoner population, which afforded him privileged status; the death march toward Germany; escape and hiding; liberation by Russian troops; being drafted into the Russian army in January 1945; obtaining a pass to find his parents in Munich; contacting his aunt in the United States; emigration and being drafted into the U.S. army in 1949. Mr. F. reflects upon relations and behavior in the camps including various survival strategies.
- Author/Creator
- F., Manek, 1923-
- Published
- New York, N.Y. : Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1987
- Interview Date
- November 8, 1987.
- Locale
- Poland
Warsaw
Będzin (Poland)
Gdańsk (Poland)
Łódź (Poland)
Warsaw (Poland)
Munich (Germany)
- Cite As
- Manek F. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-952). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Schiff, Gabriele, interviewer.
Rosen, Anna, interviewer.
