Description
Object description
Czechoslovakian Jewish schoolchild in Czechoslovakia and Hungary, 1939-1944; inmate of Auschwitz II-Birkenau, Auschwitz III-Monowitz and Gleiwitz Subcamp, Auschwitz Concentration Camp, Poland, 5/1944-1/1945 and Buchenwald Concentration Camp, Germany, 2/1945-4/1945
Content description
REEL 1 Recollections of background in Czechoslovakia, 1929-1939: family circumstances in Prague; education and health problems; reasons for move to relatives in Carpathian Mountains; character of Jewish and Russian Christian communities. Aspects of Hungarian occupation of Carpathian Region in Czechoslovakia, 1939-1940: effects of Hungarian occupation; parents' fate in Prague; food situation; confiscation of Jewish businesses; opinion of Adolf Hitler's attitude towards Jews; restrictions on education; character of religious life. Recollections of period as schoolchild in Budapest, Hungary, 1940-1944: move to Budapest; failure of efforts to emigrate, 1940.
REEL 2 Continues: support from Jewish community; daily life in city; hearing of stories of German anti-Semitic atrocities; reaction of Jewish community to German occupation of Hungary, 3/1944; contrast between Hungarian and German attitudes towards Jews. Recollections of deportation from Budapest, Hungary to Auschwitz II-Birkenau Concentration Camp, Poland, 5/ 1944: character of journey; question of potential fate; arrival and selection; prior knowledge of destination; initial impressions of camp; shaving and issue of uniforms; role of kapos; avoiding classification as child; conditions in camp. Recollections of period as inmate in Auschwitz III-Monowitz Concentration Camp, Poland, 6/1944-8/1944: daily routine; conditions in camp; attempted rape by kapo and consequences.
REEL 3 Continues: efforts to avoid work; selection for engineering training; health situation; medical facilities and fate of chronically sick; lack of hygiene; psychological state of inmates; illustration of guards willingness to shoot inmates; role and nature of kapos; question of recreation; rumours of German defeats; character of political and criminal inmates; relations with other inmates; abandonment of religious dietary laws; loss of faith; mental attitude; reasons for selection for gate duties and consequent transfer to Glewitz Subcamp.
REEL 4 Continues: Recollections of period as inmate at Glewitz Subcamp, Auschwitz Concentraton Camp, Poland, 8/1944-1/1945: daily routine on gate; barrack accommodation; example of cruelty of kapos; hanging of inmate escapees; varying degrees of brutality of different Schutzstaffel (SS) camp commandants; work duties; story of being given meal by German Army officer; evacuation of camp, 1/1945. Recollections of journey from Glewitz Subcamp, Auschwitz Concentration Camp, Poland to Buchenwald Concentration Camp, Germany, 1/1945-2/1945: character of death march; execution of inmates falling out; illustration of varying behaviour of German guards; interval at Gross-Rosen Concentration Camp; loading prisoners into cattle trucks; effects of hunger; casualties amongst prisoners.
REEL 5 Continues: relief of guards during march. Recollections of period as inmate in Buchenwald Concentration Camp, Germany, 2/1945-4/1945: conditions and death rate in camp; transfer to main camp on kitchen duties; position of German Communist kapos; efforts to aid friends; avoidance of second death march; staying in camp as skeleton staff after evacuation. Aspects of liberation of Buchenwald Concentration Camp, Germany, 4/1945: arrival of troops of 89th Infantry Div, United States Army 4/4/1945; German resistance in nearby woods; move to Schutzstaffel (SS) quarters and bartering with American troops. Aspects of period as displaced person in Czechoslovakia and Germany, 1945: return to Prague, Czechoslovakia to search for family; role as mascot with United States Army unit in Germany; second return to Prague, Czechoslovakia; emigration to GB; free travel for former inmates. Question of long term effects of experience and attitude towards Germans. Aspects of liberation of Buchenwald Concentration Camp, Germany, 4/1945: refusal to take reprisals against Germans; capture of Schutzstaffel (SS) guards; treatment of former kapos; informer executed by inmates.