Peter S. Holocaust testimony (HVT-2337) [videorecording] / interviewed by Dana L. Kline and Lucille B. Ritvo, February 14, 1994.

New Haven, Conn. : Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1994.

1 videorecording (1 hr., 24 min.) : col.

English

Videotape testimony of Peter S., who was born in Nuremberg, Germany in 1936. He recalls anti-Jewish restrictions; frequent military parades; deportation with his parents and younger brother to Latvia in November 1941; their privileged status because his father headed a team of skilled mechanics needed by the German army; living in and near the Rīga ghetto; transfer in February 1943 to the Eastern front; his father rescuing a German officer in a partisan attack; imprisonment in Rīga from October 1943 to January 1944; being smuggled into Germany, probably by the officer his father had saved; and separation from his father, whom he later learned died in Buchenwald. He recounts transfer with his mother and brother to Ravensbrück; a Polish inmate doctor who treated his illness; transfer to Bergen-Belsen in early 1945; horrendous conditions; and liberation by British soldiers in April 1945. He describes their return to Nuremberg; emigration to the United States in 1947; his mother's remarriage; his and his brother's education and careers; and reluctance to speak of his experiences. He provides insightful observations of his feelings during the war and of concentration camp life and shows documents and photographs (obtained from Britain's Imperial War Museum).

June 01, 2002

Peter S. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2337). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Peter S. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2337). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Oral histories (document genres)