Leon W. Edited Testimony (HVT-8102)

This edited testimony, produced for the 40th anniversary of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, is of Leon W., who was born into a middle income family in Łódź, Poland, in 1925. Mr. W. recalls his happy childhood, widespread denial in the wake of the outbreak of the war; and the formation of the Łódź ghetto. He vividly describes conditions in the ghetto: forced labor, the harrowing effects of intense hunger, the deterioration of interpersonal relationships, selections, and infanticide. He tells of his arrest in May, 1944; his transfer to Częstochowa, where he worked in an airplane factory; his evacuation from that camp at the end of 1944 to Buchenwald and from there to work in a factory in nearby Sonneberg; the death march in April, 1945; and the joylessness of his liberation. Mr. W. also reflects on his sense that he now leads a double existence; his growing obsession with the past; his return to Poland to try to locate family; and his recurring dreams.