Boris B. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3442) [videorecording] / interviewed by Henri Borlant and Rachel Wieviorka, January 30, 1996.

Paris, France : Témoignages pour mémoire, 1996.

1 videorecording (2 hr., 59 min.) : col.

French

Videotape testimony of Boris B., who was born in Częstochowa, Poland in 1918, the youngest of ten children. He recalls his father's death; joining his brother in Saverne in 1928; attending rabbinical school in Paris; working in his family's business; military draft in 1939; German invasion; capture as a prisoner of war in Brest; incarceration in Coëtquidan, Loudéac, Compiègne, then Saint-Just-en-Chaussée; escape; returning to Paris; joining his mother in Caluire-et-Cuire via Lyon; employment as a glass-cutter; a year later, working for Father Alexandre Glasberg, OSE, and Sixièmè (Jewish scouts), hiding Jews and others; managing a refugee house in Chancey; living in Pau and Lyon; marriage to a non-Jew; his son's birth; arrest in January 1944 while delivering funds from the Union Générale des Israélites to the Jewish National Fund; incarceration in Montluc, then Drancy; deportation in February to Auschwitz/Birkenau; a privileged assignment to the Union Kommando; escaping a selection with a prisoner's help; beatings; sending a clandestine letter to his wife; a death march in January 1945; remaining with a friend and assisting each other; train transport to Mauthausen; transfer to Gusen; slave labor in underground factories; liberation; walking to Linz; repatriation to Hotel Lutetia in Paris; and reunion with his wife and son. Mr. B. discusses the importance to his survival of luck and staying inconspicuous; reluctance to share his experiences with his children; and their choosing to identify themselves as Jews.

June 01, 2002

Boris B. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3442). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Boris B. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3442). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Oral histories (document genres)