Mordechay W. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3423) [videorecording] / interviewed by Anna Lipphardt and Maximilian Preisler, March 7, 1996.

Potsdam, Germany : Moses Mendelsohn Zentrum für europäisch-jüdische Studien, Universität Potsdam, 1996.

1 videorecording (4 hr., 30 min.) : col.

German

This testimony is in German.

Videotape testimony of Mordechay W., who was born in Żarki, Poland in 1922, one of six children. He recalls increasing antisemitism in the 30s; participation in Hashomer Hatzair; German invasion; escaping to Pilica during a round-up; forced transfer to the Radomsko ghetto; escaping with one brother to Częstochowa; smuggling themselves into the ghetto; working with the resistance, including Mordecai Anielewicz; hiding in a bunker; discovery; slave labor at the HASAG factory; deportation to Buchenwald in January 1945; hiding among French and Polish prisoners; transfer to Theresienstadt; liberation by Soviet troops; assistance from the Red Cross; returning to Sosnowiec, Poland; reunion with a sister; learning the rest of his family had been killed; traveling to Italy; preparing for illegal emigration to Palestine in Bari and Rome; assistance from the Joint; meeting his future wife in Genoa; boarding an illegal ship; incarceration on Cyprus by the British; marriage; his daughter's birth in 1954; traveling to Sachsenhausen in 1961 as a guest of East Germany; visiting Buchenwald and Warsaw; and moving to Berlin. Mr. W. discusses many incidents of resistance; assistance from non-Jews; the prisoner organization in Buchenwald; repressiveness in East Germany; and visiting his hometown with his daughter and grandchildren. He shows photographs.

June 01, 2002

Mordechay W. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3423). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Mordechay W. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3423). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Oral histories (document genres)