Description
Object description
Polish Jewish private served with 25th Infantry Regiment, Polish Army in Poland, 1939; inmate in Piotrków Trybunalski Ghetto, Poland, 1940-1942; forced labourer in Bugaj Timberworks, Piotrków Trybunalski Ghetto and Hasag-Pelcery Labour Camp, Częstochowa, Poland, 10/1942-1/1945; inmate in Buchenwald Concentration Camp, Germany, 1/1945-3/1945; forced labourer in Hugo Schneider AG munition factory, Colditz, Germany, 3/1945-4/1945; inmate in Theresienstadt Concentration Camp, Czechoslovakia, 4/1945-5/1945
Content description
REEL 1 Recollections of period as civilian in Piotrków Trybunalski area, Poland, 1914-1939: family; education; nature of anti-Semitism in pre-war Poland; relations between Jews and Poles including question of inter-marriage; degree of migration; languages spoken; involvement in Zionist Youth Movement; attitude towards Poland; details of education; political attitudes; National Service with Polish Army, 1935-1936; anti-Semitism in Polish Army.
REEL 2 Continues: nature of basic training; suicides amongst new recruits; pre-war attitude of Poles towards Germans. Aspects of operations as private with 25th Infantry Regt, Polish Army in Poland, 1939: mobilisation, 8/1939; attitude of Poles towards fighting Soviet Union; lack of modern equipment; his wounding in leg by German machine gun fire; capture and hospitalisation; German machine gunning of Polish Army troops and civilians; period in convent hospital, 1939-1940; transfer to prisoner of war camp on release from hospital.
REEL 3 Continues: Recollections of period as inmate in Piotrków Trybunalski Ghetto, Poland, 1940-1942: reasons for release and status as ex-prisoner of war; conditions in ghetto; speculation on future fate of Jewish inmates; role and behaviour of Jewish Police; plans to escape from ghetto; rounding up of Jewish inmates, 10/1942. Aspects of period as forced labourer in Bugja Timberworks, Piotrków Trybunalski Ghetto, Poland, 10/1942-8/1944: work duties in factory; smuggling food into factory; conditions; beatings; executions. Aspects of period as forced labourer in Hasag-Pelcery Labour Camp, Częstochowa, Poland, 8/1944-1/1945: transfer to camp; work in Hasag-Eisenhutte AG steel foundry. Aspects of period as inmate in Buchenwald Concentration Camp, Germany, 1/1945-3/1945: removal of his finger nails. Aspects of period as inmate in Hugo Schneider AG munition factory, Colditz, Germany, 3/1945-4/1945: work duties. Aspects of period as inmate in Theresienstadt Concentration Camp, Czechoslovakia, 4/1945-5/1945:: march to camp, 4/1945.
REEL 4 Continues: character of camp; physical condition; liberation of camp; joining group of Jewish children as escort bound for Windermere in GB. Reflections on Holocaust experience: relations between concentration camp inmates; psychological state of concentration camp inmates; death of father in Buchenwald Concentration Camp; attitude of child inmates towards camps; attitude towards experience; attitude towards Germans.