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Gabriel M. Holocaust testimony (HVT-1113) interviewed by Dana L. Kline,

Oral History | Fortunoff Collection ID: HVT-1113

Videotape testimony of Gabriel M., who was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1934. Mr. M. recalls his prewar neighborhood; close family ties with Jews and Christians; German occupation; his family's strong Polish sympathies; daily life in the ghetto; his sense of loss at the death of a friend; the "nightmarish, unreal" feeling of the occupation; the role of war news as a tenuous link with reality; relocating when the Germans reduced the ghetto's size in mid-1942; his father's role in the ghetto uprising; and escaping with his mother in early 1943, aided by a Polish policeman active in rescuing Jews. He tells of being hidden in various places; hiding with ten Jews active in the resistance; living on forged papers; apprehension and internment with his mother at Preussenau during the 1944 Warsaw uprising; escaping on false papers to Kraków and Zakopane; liberation by Soviet forces; emigration with Youth Aliyah to Palestine in 1946; and the "different reality" of Jews in Palestine and their initial reluctance to confront the Holocaust.

Author/Creator
M., Gabriel, 1934-
Published
New Haven, Conn. : Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1988
Interview Date
September 28, 1988.
Locale
Poland
Warsaw
Warsaw (Poland)
Kraków (Poland)
Zakopane (Poland)
Language
English
Copies
3 copies: 3/4 in. master; 3/4 in. dub; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
Cite As
Gabriel M. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-1113). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.