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Oral history interview with Avraham Weitzman

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1995.A.1272.162 | RG Number: RG-50.120.0162

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    Oral history interview with Avraham Weitzman

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Avraham Weitzman, born in 1924 in Radom, Poland, describes his parents; his older sister and younger brother; his parents’ successful shoe business; growing up observant; being a member of Hashomer Hadati, Akivah, and Massada; his education; his extended family; the annexation of Austria; the German invasion; his mother’s reluctance to leave; Polish collaborators; the persecution of Jews and restrictions imposed; the black market; the Judenrat (Jewish council); forced labor; Passover in 1940; being sent to study mechanics for 10 months in a weapons factory in 1941; how the Jewish police were selected; the creation of the ghetto; his role in family underground business of selling the hidden leather stock to Polish shoe manufacturers; the conditions in the ghetto and his informal education there; the round ups and deportations; the Judenrat organizing a course on precision mechanics; hearing rumors about atrocities in other towns; the two ghettos in Radom; working in construction in a factory; feeling very isolated and lonely; leaving and working in a coal unloading and distribution plant; not eating bread during Passover in 1943; going to Pionki and working in the bicycle maintenance section; conditions in the barracks; being left behind as most of the prisoners were sent to Auschwitz; his work digging trenches; being sent to Chestochova, Poland, where they boarded a train for Berlin, Germany; being transferred by truck to Oranienburg, Germany, where they entered Sachsenhausen; seeing the words “Arbeit Macht Frei”; receiving an ID number and being quarantined for six weeks; German prisoners in the camp; studying German in the camp from a Nazi paper with the help of a professor from Munich; Yom Kippur in 1944; his uncle’s arrival to the camp; being sent in October 1944 to Glöwen, Germany to work in DAG factory, where Abraham was appointed as manager of the new arrivals; being in charge of food distribution and barracks cleaning; being transferred to Bergen-Belsen; working in a factory in Rathenow, Germany that produced airplane wings; the conditions in Rathenow; liberation in April 1945; going to Berlin to make contact with refugee organizations; returning to Radom; living in Neuruppin, Germany; immigrating to Israel in 1948; UNRRA’s displaced persons camps; helping the Zionists send people to Palestine from 1946 to 1947; and his work preserving Holocaust memories.
    Interviewee
    Avraham Weitzman
    Date
    interview:  1993 May 05
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection

    Physical Details

    Language
    Hebrew
    Extent
    10 videocassettes (U-Matic) : sound, color ; 3/4 in..

    Rights & Restrictions

    Conditions on Access
    There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
    Conditions on Use
    No restrictions on use

    Keywords & Subjects

    Personal Name
    Weitzman, Avraham, 1924-

    Administrative Notes

    Provenance
    Nathan Beyrak conducted the interview with Avraham Weitzman in Israel on May 5, 1993, for the Israel Documentation Project. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the tapes of the interview by transfer from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Oral History Dept. in February 1995.
    Funding Note
    The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:15:18
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn502890

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