William W. Holocaust testimony (HVT-2430) [videorecording] / interviewed by Gillian Green Douek, February 10, 1993.

London, England : British Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1993.

1 videorecording (2 hr., 43 min.) : col.

English

Associated material: Wolf, William. Interview 12326. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation. Access at https://vha.usc.edu.

This testimony cannot be used for financial profit.

Videotape testimony of William W., who was born in Uz︠h︡horod, Czechoslovakia (presently Ukraine) in 1920, one of six children. He recounts his family's orthodoxy; working as a tutor from age fourteen to help support his family; Hungarian occupation in 1938; anti-Jewish restrictions; German invasion; ghettoization for three weeks at a brick factory; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; his mother, father, and one sister being selected for killing; transfer three weeks later to Jaworzno; slave labor in a coal mine; civilian workers leaving him food and cigarettes; public executions of escapees; others praying on Yom Kippur (he had lost his belief in God); hospitalization; surgery on his leg with no anesthesia; remaining behind when the camp was evacuated in January 1945; liberation by Soviet troops; hospitalization for eight weeks; transfer to Kraków; returning to his family home which had been destroyed; looking for his sisters every day at the railroad station; their return a month later; attempting to emigrate in the 1960s; obtaining an exit visa to visit his brother in London; traveling with his wife and two children from Prague to Vienna, then Israel; and joining his brother in London in 1968. Mr. W. notes regaining his religious faith in 1956.

June 01, 2002

William W. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2430). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

William W. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2430). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Oral histories (document genres)