Leon G. Holocaust testimony (HVT-20) [videorecording] / interviewed by Laurel Vlock, July 15, 1979.

New Haven, Conn. : Holocaust Survivors Film Project, 1979.

1 videorecording (1 hr., 14 min.) : col.

English

Videotape testimony of Leon G., who was born in Częstochowa, Poland, in 1923. He was one of nine children, three of whom survived the Holocaust. Mr. G. tells of a pogrom which took place in Częstochowa in 1933; the rise of antisemitism there beginning in 1938; and the German occupation and the increased anti-Jewish activities which followed. He describes his life in the Częstochowa ghetto, where he worked as a forced laborer at the railroad station; his escape from the ghetto on New Year's Eve, 1941; and his eventual return home because there was no help forthcoming from the Poles. He recounts the liquidation of the Częstochowa ghetto which began on Yom Kippur, 1942, and lasted for five days. He was subsequently sent to the HASAG slave labor camp, where he spent the next three months until the small ghetto was formed. Speaking with evident pride of standing out among the inhabitants of the ghetto because of his excellent work as a locomotive engineer (which consisted of repairing the cars which transported the Jews), Mr. G. at the same time tells of being haunted by his imagination of the fate of his mother, who was deported in one of these cars. He also talks about his wife, a survivor whom he met in Częstochowa after the war. This testimony includes graphic depictions of the cruel and dehumanizing treatment to which Mr. G. and other Jews were subjected.

June 01, 2002

Leon G. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-20). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Leon G. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-20). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Oral histories (document genres)