Title
Kalman A. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3869) [videorecording], November 14, 1996 and November 28, 1996.
Summary
Videotape testimony of Kalman A., who was born in Kaunas, Lithuania in 1928, an only child. He recounts attending a Yavneh school; antisemitic harassment; Soviet invasion; attending a Soviet school; German invasion; Lithuanians openly stealing their possessions; his father's round-up (they never saw him again); ghettoization; slave labor at the airport; smuggling food into the ghetto; a selection prior to a mass shooting at the 9th Fort; hiding during the children's selection; a public hanging; transfer to Aleksotas with his mother, aunt, and her children; deportation to Stutthof; separation from his family; transfer to Landsberg; placement in a children's group led by Ze'ev G.; their transfer to Dachau, then Auschwitz/Birkenau one month later; assignment as a camp cleaner, which resulted in receiving extra food; train transfer to Mauthausen in January 1945; a death march to Gunskirchen; hearing about cannibalism; a German soldier giving him food; liberation by United States troops; hospitalization in Wels; transfer by the Jewish Brigade to a hospital in Udine, then Milan; his adoption by a survivor in 1945; their emigration to Israel in 1955; reunion with his aunt (his mother did not survive); marriage; and adopting a child. Mr. A. discusses songs in the ghetto and camps (he sings several); not losing his belief in God; nightmares resulting from his experiences; sharing his experiences with his daughter; and attending reunions of the children's group.