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Oral history interview with Daniel Avidar

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1995.A.1272.238 | RG Number: RG-50.120.0238

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    Oral history interview with Daniel Avidar

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Daniel Avidar, born in 1931 in Vilna, Poland (now Vilnius, Lithuania), describes being the youngest of five children in an affluent family; attending a Hebrew school; the Soviet occupation; his family being scheduled for deportation to Siberia; the German invasion in June 1941; his sister Batya and her children living with them; his sister Dina working as a nurse in the Jewish hospital; ghettoization in September; Batya hiding gold in their basement; breaking valuables they could not bring with them so others could not have them; Dina obtaining a position for Batya at the hospital; Dina switching her documents with Batya so she could claim their father was her husband and her younger siblings her children, thus saving them from round-ups and mass killings; his parents hiding in a bunker in November 1941 during a round-up; Batya hiding Daniel and his siblings at the hospital; returning to find their parents gone; attending school, which was a distraction from hunger and cold; his sister Rivka's death; attending synagogue daily to say Kaddish for her; the rabbi inviting him to attend his yeshiva; finding strength through his Torah studies; a public hanging; learning ghetto songs; working in the locksmith shop; seeing a notice that they were to be deported; Dina dressing him as a girl to keep him with her and pushing him to the men's group once they arrived at Kaiserwald; doing slave labor building railroad tracks; obtaining valuables from newly arrived prisoners; trading with locals for extra food; throwing valuables over the fence to his sisters; visiting with his sisters weekly; being hospitalized for an injury; receiving assistance from two prisoner physicians; a German political prisoner saving him from selection for death; hiding for four weeks while his injury healed; a foreman helping him avoid the children's selection; an SS pushing his hand into a saw; the slow healing of his wound; being transferred on Rosh ha-Shanah 1944 by ship to Stutthof; prisoners chanting Yom Kippur prayers during the journey; continuing contact with Dina; being transferred to Kokoszki (also called Burggraben); slave labor in the Schichau-Werke shipyard; smuggling potatoes back to camp to share with others; a German helping him avoid a fatal beating; a death march in January 1945; liberation by Soviet troops in May; Dina obtaining medication for him; observing a Soviet soldier killing Germans for revenge; their three-month journey to Vilnius; their inability to obtain their family property; avoiding antisemitic violence with help from Poles; traveling to Łódź; joining Hashomer Hatzair; Berihah moving them several times; his illegal immigration to Palestine in 1947; his twenty-five year military career; his loss of faith in God; the importance of his sister and friends to his survival; the camp hierarchies; overcoming pervasive painful memories through helping establish and build Israel and his family; testifying twice at war crime trials in Düsseldorf; sharing his experiences with his children; and going on a trip to Poland in 1992.
    Interviewee
    Daniel Avidar
    Date
    interview:  1995 April 17
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection

    Physical Details

    Language
    Hebrew
    Extent
    13 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
    Avidar, Daniel.

    Administrative Notes

    Provenance
    Nathan Beyrak conducted the interview with Daniel Avidar in Israel on April 17, 1995. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the tapes of the interview in 1996, as an accretion to the original collection of Israel Documentation Project interviews received by transfer 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 08:15:42
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn503036

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