Robert R. Holocaust testimony (HVT-1254) [videorecording] / interviewed by Bernard Weinstein and Carole M. Shaffer-Koros, November 8, 1988.

Union, N.J. : Kean College Oral Testimonies Project, 1988.

1 videorecording (1 hr., 40 min.) : col.

Videotape testimony of Robert R., who was born in Mellrichstadt, Germany in 1924. He recounts his family's orthodoxy; attending a Catholic school; antisemitic harassment; attending high school with his brother in Bad Neustadt an der Saale; increasing antisemitism; expulsion from school in 1937; attending a Jewish school; having to leave town for defending himself against an attack by Hitler Youth; being beaten by Nazis; apprenticeship with an uncle as a tailor; Kristallnacht; his father's and uncle's arrests; his arrest and deportation to Buchenwald; a fellow prisoner assisting him; standing appell for hours; brutal guards; relations between German and Austrian prisoners; release because he was listed on a childrens' transport; reporting to the Gestapo in Weimar; living with an uncle; emigration to England on a kindertransport in 1939; working at a bakery; learning his parents and brother had emigrated to the United States; internment on the Isle of Man as an "enemy alien"; release; service as an air raid warden in London and working in a bakery; reunion with his brother in 1943 (he was in the United States Army); joining his family in the United States in 1947; marriage in 1948; and the births of two children. Mr. R. discusses deportation of his grandparents; non-Jews who helped his parents survive; and sharing his experiences with his children. He shows photographs.

June 01, 2002

Robert R. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-1254). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Robert R. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-1254). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Oral histories (document genres)