Testimony of Avraham Barak, born in Sighet, Romania, regarding his experiences in Auschwitz and Birkenau

Testimony of Avraham Barak, born in Sighet, Romania, regarding his experiences in Auschwitz and Birkenau Life before the war; his father is a tailor; witness attends a "heder" and a public school; work at a young age as a metalworker's apprentice. Hungarian occupation, 1941; displays of antisemitism; deportation of his father to a labor camp; his father returns home; deportation to a ghetto, early 1943; deportation to Auschwitz; transfer to Birkenau; transfer to various camps; camp life including forced labor assignments logging trees, builds a bridge in a quarry; liberation. Typhus; return home; leaves Romania with the Nochum organization via Hungary, Germany and Italy; unsuccessful attempt to make aliya to Eretz Israel, on the "Shabbetai Lozinski" ship; another unsuccessful attempt to make aliya, on the "Chaim Arlozorov" ship; detention in Cyprus; aliya to Israel, 1948; enlists in the IDF; combat in Israel's War of Independence.