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Oral history interview with Martin Hoffman

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1995.A.1285.23 | RG Number: RG-50.149.0023

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    Oral history interview with Martin Hoffman

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    Martin Josef Hoffman, born in 1929 in Prague, Czech Republic, describes his family; his neighborhood; his education and health problems; reasons for his move to live with relatives in the Carpathian Mountains; the Jewish and Russian Christian communities; the Hungarian occupation of the Carpathian region in Czechoslovakia from 1939 to 1940; the effects of the Hungarian occupation; his parents' fate in Prague; the food situation; the confiscation of Jewish businesses; his opinion of Hitler's attitude to Jews; the restrictions on education; his religious life; living in Budapest, Hungary from 1940 to 1944; his failure to emigrate in 1940; support from Jewish community; daily life in the city; hearing stories of German antisemitic atrocities; the German occupation of Hungary in 1944 and the reaction of Jewish community; the contrasts between Hungarian and German attitudes towards Jews; his deportation from Budapest to Auschwitz in early 1944; the journey there and not knowing his fate; the reception in Birkenau and Auschwitz and the selection process; his initial impressions of the camp; being shaved and receiving an uniform; the role of Kapos; avoiding classification as a child; conditions in the camp; being an inmate in Buna Monowitz in 1944; his daily routine and conditions in the camp; the attempted rape by a Kapo and consequences; his efforts to avoid work; being selected for engineering training; the health situation; the medical facilities and the fate of the chronically sick; the lack of hygiene; the mental state of inmates; the guards’ willingness to shoot inmates; the role and nature of Kapos; recreation; rumors of German defeats; the political and criminal inmates; relations with other inmates; the abandonment of religious dietary laws; the loss of faith; mental attitudes; his selection for gate duties and his consequent transfer to Glewitz; his daily routine at the gate; the barrack accommodations; the cruelty of Kapos; the hanging of inmate escapees; varying degrees of brutality of different SS camp commandants; work duties; the story of being given a meal by a German Army officer; the evacuation of camp in February 1945 and the journey from Glewitz to Buchenwald; the death march and the execution of inmates falling out; the varying behavior of German guards; their interval at Gross-Rosen; being loaded into cattle trucks; the effects of hunger; the casualties amongst the prisoners; life in Buchenwald, including the conditions and death rate; being transferred to the main camp for kitchen duties; the German Communist Kapos; his efforts to aid friends; the avoidance of a second death march; staying in camp as after the evacuation; being liberated by United States troops in April 1945; the German resistance in the nearby woods; moving to SS quarters and bartering with US troops; being a displaced person in Czechoslovakia and Germany in 1945; returning to Prague to search for his family; his role as a mascot with a US Army unit in Germany; his second return to Prague; immigrating to Great Britain; the free travel for former inmates; the long term effects of his experience and his attitude towards Germans; his refusal to take reprisals against Germans; and the capture of SS guards during liberation and the treatment of former Kapos.
    Interviewee
    Martin Hoffman
    Date
    interview:  1985 December 07

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    3 sound cassettes (90 min.).

    Rights & Restrictions

    Conditions on Access
    There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
    Conditions on Use
    Restrictions on use. Permission to copy and/or use recordings in any production must be granted by the Imperial War Museums.

    Keywords & Subjects

    Topical Term
    Antisemitism--Czech Republic. Child concentration camp inmates. Concentration camp escapes. Concentration camp guards. Concentration camp inmates--Intellectual life. Concentration camp inmates--Medical care. Concentration camp inmates--Selection process. Concentration camps--Psychological aspects. Death march survivors. Death marches. Faith (Judaism) Hanging. Holocaust survivors--Great Britain. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Czechoslovakia--Personal narratives. Hungarians--Czechoslovakia. Jewish children in the Holocaust. Jewish children--Crimes against--Poland. Jewish refugees--Czechoslovakia. Jewish refugees--Germany. Jews--Czech Republic--Prague. Jews--Persecutions--Belarus. Kapos. Refugee camps--Czechoslovakia. Refugee camps--Germany. World War, 1939-1945--Deportations from Hungary. Men--Personal narratives.
    Personal Name
    Hoffman, Martin, 1929-

    Administrative Notes

    Holder of Originals
    Imperial War Museum
    Provenance
    The interview was conducted by the Imperial War Museum as part of their retrospective oral history interview program. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum acquired a copy of the interview with Martin Hoffman from the Imperial War Museum in February 1995.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:17:24
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn510830

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