Joseph W. Holocaust testimony (HVT-2581) [videorecording] / interviewed by Joni-Sue Blinderman, April 29, 1993.

New York, N.Y. : A Living Memorial to the Holocaust-Museum of Jewish Heritage, 1993.

1 videorecording (1 hr., 16 min.) : col.

English

Associated material: Winter, Joseph. Interview 10356. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation. Access at https://vha.usc.edu.

Videotape testimony of Joseph W., who was born in Stuttgart, Germany in 1914. He recalls his parents' grocery business; their separation in 1931 (his father moved to Romania); celebrating religious holidays; attending business school; his belief that Nazi antisemitism would pass; Stuttgart's liberal atmosphere; exemption from wearing the yellow star due to his mother's Romanian citizenship; losing his job due to anti-Jewish laws; destruction of his mother's store during Kristallnacht; moving with his mother and sister into Jewish housing; working in a Jewish center processing emigration applications for Gestapo approval; obtaining a visa for the United States in 1940 with help from the center's director; emigration (he never saw his mother and sister again); living with an uncle; conscription into the United States army; training as an intelligence officer; participation in the Battle of the Bulge with the Ninth Armored Division; interrogating German prisoners; returning to Stuttgart; learning his mother and sister were deported in 1942 and his father died in a concentration camp in 1941; returning to the United States; marriage; and working in the fashion business. Mr. W. discusses a 1965 trip to Germany with his two children and he shows family photographs.

June 01, 2002

Joseph W. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2581). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Joseph W. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2581). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Oral histories (document genres)