Joe K. Holocaust testimony (HVT-2380) [videorecording] / interviewed by David Herman and Elliot Perry, January 25, 1991.

London, England : British Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1991.

1 videorecording (2 hr., 58 min.) : col.

English

This testimony or any excerpts from it cannot be used for commercial purposes.

Videotape testimony of Joe K., who was born in Uniejów, Poland in 1928, one of three children. He recounts his father's death when he was three; living with his grandparents; attending cheder; yearly visits to his father's grave in Łódź; antisemitic harassment; an uncle visiting from England; German invasion; ghettoization; forced labor; transfer to the Dzierzbotki ghetto; building a bunker in the forest with others; hiding there during round-ups; he and his mother being captured by the Germans; their deportation to a labor camp; separation from her en route (he never saw her again); slave labor; singing to keep up their spirits; transfer to Auschwitz/Birkenau; slave labor for I. G. Farben in Buna/Monowitz; public hangings; a kapo assigning him a privileged position; British POWs giving him food; brief hospitalization; a death march, then train transfer to Nordhausen; working in an underground rocket factory; Allied bombings; transfer to Bergen-Belsen; liberation by British troops; cannibalism; working for the British army in Münster; exacting revenge on SS prisoners; learning a cousin was alive in Austria; traveling to see her; returning to Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp; locating his uncle in England; emigrating to join him; treatment for mental illness resulting from his experiences; marriage; and adopting a daughter. Mr. K. discusses the varying status of concentration camp prisoners; losing his faith in God; and not wanting his daughter to carry his memories, despite knowing his story.

June 01, 2002

Joe K. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2380). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Joe K. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2380). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Oral histories (document genres)