Benno S. Holocaust testimony (HVT-2546) [videorecording] / interviewed by Kathy Strochlic and Deborah Koeppel, December 15, 1992.

New York, N.Y. : A Living Memorial to the Holocaust-Museum of Jewish Heritage, 1992.

1 videorecording (57 min.) : col.

English

This testimony cannot be used until the year 2020.

Videotape testimony of Benno S., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1937. He recounts his family's move to Paris during the Anschluss; his father's deportation to Pithiviers in 1941; his mother's friend bringing him and his older brother to live with a non-Jewish woman in Meudon in 1942; four or five other children living there; attending church (he did not know he was Jewish); his mother's sister retrieving them in 1945; reunion with their mother in Grenoble; learning his father had been killed in Auschwitz; his mother's remarriage; the birth of a half-brother; living with his aunt in London from 1952 to 1956, then with an aunt in France; joining an uncle in the United States in 1961; military enlistment in 1962; posting to France for eighteen months; marriage; graduating from college; a government job; and the births of two children. Mr. S. discusses the continuing trauma of the loss of his father; perceiving himself as a stranger no matter where he is; becoming orthodox; his children's lack of interest in his experiences; and never having met anyone who could understand his situation. He shows the document verifying his father's death.

June 01, 2002

Benno S. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2546). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Benno S. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2546). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Oral histories (document genres)