- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Henry R. (originally Heinz), who was born in Göttingen, Germany, in 1921. In this highly detailed testimony, Mr. R. relates his family's move to Hamburg due to Nazi threats; his brother's incarceration and emigration after Kristallnacht; six months in Buxtehude labor camp in 1939; deportation with his family to Minsk in 1941; ghetto conditions; mobile gas vans used for mass executions; physical and psychological brutalization; and marriage in 1942. He recalls help from a German family friend; liquidation of the ghetto, including his wife and family; deportation to Treblinka in September 1943; his first encounter with the smell of burning flesh; transport to Budzyń, then Rzeszow; work in Heinkel factories; narrowly escaping execution by Einsatztruppen; transport to Płaszów; exchanging information with female prisoners; and transfer to Wieliczka just before he was to be gassed. He describes transport to Flossenbürg; learning of a camp bordello for the SS and kapos; transfer to Colmar, then to an underground factory in the Vosges; transport in mid-1944 to Sachsenhausen; brutalities he witnessed; transport to Bremen, then Bergen-Belsen; and liberation. He discusses lengthy recuperation in Sweden; his wartime perception that death was a "steady partner"; and deciding to write a book about his experiences.
- Author/Creator
- R., Henry, 1921-
- Published
- New York, N.Y. : Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale, 1986
- Interview Date
- April 7, 1986.
- Locale
- Belarus
Minsk
Germany
Göttingen (Germany)
Hamburg (Germany)
Vosges Mountains (France)
Bremen (Germany)
- Cite As
- Henry R. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-688). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Dwork, Bonnie, interviewer.
- Notes
-
Related publication: Jahre des Schreckens : und ich blieb übrig, dass ich Dir's ansage / Heinz Rosenberg ; übersetzt und bearbeitet von Hannah Vogt. -- Göttingen : Steidl Verlag, c1985.
