Description
Object description
Polish Jewish civilian in Staszów and Łódź, Poland, 1939-1942; forced labourer in Hasag Granat Werke munition factory, Kielce and Hasag-Pelcery Labour Camp, Czestochowa, Poland, 12/1942-12/1944; inmate in Buchenwald Concentration Camp, Germany, 1/1945-3/1945; forced labourer in H G Schneider AG munition factory, Colditz, Germany, 3/1945-4/1945; inmate of Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in Czechoslovakia, 4/1945-5/1945
Content description
REEL 1 Recollections of background in Staszów and Łódź, Poland, 1928-1939: family circumstances; education; Polish anti-Semitism. Recollections of German occupation of Łódź, Poland, 9/1939-1/1940: sight of German troops entering city, 9/1939; bread queues from 9/1939; German behaviour towards Jews; loss of father's business; restriction on education; first sight of Jewish civilian shot by German on street, 10/1939; reasons for leaving Łódź, 1/1940. Recollections of period in Staszów, Poland, 1940-1942: return to Staszów; introduction of restrictions against Jewish civilians, 1941; father's forced labour on farm; methods of daily survival; rounding up of Jews, 7/11/1942; going into hiding with relatives, 11/1942.
REEL 2 Continues: discovery by Germans. Recollectons of period as forced labourer in Hasag Granat Werke munition factory, Kielce and Hasag-Pelcery Labour Camp, Czestochowa, Poland, 12/1942-12/1944: fate of parents; conversation with boy who had escaped from Treblinka Extermination Camp; work with transport column as storeman; methods of surviving by bartering; evacuation of factory to Czestochowa; reasons for missing chance of being liberated by Soviet Army. Recollections of period as inmate in Buchenwald Concentration Camp, Germany, 1/1945-3/1945: character of train journey to camp; theft of clogs; avoiding dangerous quarry job. Aspects of period as forced labourer in H G Schneider AG munition factory in Colditz, Germany, 3/1945-4/1945: work; rumour of British prisoners of war in castle; march away from Colditz to Theresienstadt Concentration Camp, 4/1945. Aspects of liberation at Theresienstadt Concentration Camp, 5/1945: arrival of Soviet Army tanks; reasons for not wishing to return to Poland; journey to Windermere, GB, 1945; contrast between Buchenwald Concentration Camp and Theresienstadt Concentration Camp.
REEL 3 Continues: attitude on liberation day, 8/5/1945. Question of whether he could stay in GB, 1945. Question of hope and survival for Jews in Second World War. Stories told to him by relative about partisans in Staszów area, Poland.