Description
Object description
Polish Jewish inmate in Sieradz Ghetto and forced labourer Otoczno Labour Camp, Poland, 3/1940-8/1942; inmate in Łódź Ghetto, Poland, 8/1942-8/1944; inmate in Auschwitz II-Birkenau Concentration Camp, Poland, 8/1944-1/1945, Buchenwald Concentration Camp, Germany, 1/1945-4/1945 and Theresienstadt Concentration Camp, Czechoslovakia, 4/1945-5/1945
Content description
REEL 1 Background in Sieradz, Poland, 1928-1939: family circumstances; aspects of anti-Semitism; presence of German Fifth Column; father's interests in politics and Zionism; education and personal ambitions. Aspects of period as refugee during German invasion of Poland, 9/1939: reasons for becoming refugees on roads; narrow escape during German Air Force raid in Łódź area; refuge with ethnic German family on route towards Łódź sight of casualties caused by German bombing of railway; arrival in Łódź initial sight of German troops; sight of German soldiers tormenting bearded Jews in Łódź, 9/1939. Aspects of period as schoolchild in Sieradz, Poland, 9/1939-2/1940: return to Sieradz.
REEL 2 Continues: banning of Jewish schools by Germans; forced unpaid labour he had to do for Germans; starting cigarette business. Aspects of period as inmate of Sieradz Ghetto, Poland, 1940: establishment of ghetto, 3/1940; banning of synagogues; drafting of Jews for forced labour; reasons for Germans taking him away from home. Aspects of period as forced labourer in Otoczno Labour Camp, Poland, 1940-1942: arrival in camp and receiving first beating; work carrying water for camp kitchen; treatment of inmates; start of gassing of inmates 1942; story of how camp commandant allowed him to return to Sieradz Ghetto. Aspects of period as inmate in Sieradz Ghetto, Poland, 1942: counting of inmates of ghetto; work for German policeman; hearing news of liquidation of ghetto, 8/1942.
REEL 3 Continues: separation from family during liquidation of Sieradz Ghetto, 8/1942. Recollections of period as inmate in Łódź Ghetto, Poland, 8/1942-8/1944: arrival in ghetto, 8/1942; fate of Jews from Sieradz Ghetto; German search for children and his escape to hiding place in cemetery; work making boots; adoption by female inmates; period in orphanage and working in textile mill; removal of children from orphanage to Auschwitz II-Birkenau Concentration Camp, 8/1944. Recollections of period as inmate of Auschwitz II-Birkenau Concentration Camp, Poland, 8/1944-1/1945: escape from group detailed for gassing; move to Gypsy Camp, farmwork at Budy.
REEL 4 Continues: work with fishing Kommando; beatings for taking fish and how he was forced to eat live fish as punishment; forced march from Auschwitz to Katowice and train journey from Katowice to Buchenwald Concentration Camp, Germany, 1/1945. Aspects of period as inmate in Buchenwald Concentration Camp, Germany, 1/1945-4/1945: contact with Soviet prisoners of war; removal to children's block; removal from camp, 4/1945. Aspects of journey from Buchenwald Concentration Camp to Theresienstadt Concentration Camp, Czechoslovakia, 4/1945-5/1945: how prisoners were tormented by guards; arrival in Czechoslovakia and kindness shown to inmates by Czech police. Aspects of liberation in Theresienstadt, 8/5/1945 including large number of deaths after liberation. Recollections of period as refugee to GB, 1945: flight in Royal Air Force Avro Lancaster from Czechoslovakia to GB, 14/5/1945; question of why boys survived camp ordeal better than girls.
REEL 5 Continues: fate of family in the Holocaust; reception in GB and attitude of British people to camp survivors, 1945. Reflections on Holocaust experience: psychological effects of Holocaust; visit to Poland and discovery of anti-Semitism still existing in Szeradz, 1980; question of aportioning blame for Holocaust; special character of Theresienstadt Concentration Camp; attitude to permission that was given for some former SS (Schutzstaffel) men to come to GB after 1945.
