Testimony of Zwi Hirsch Feld, born in Krakow, Poland, 1928, regarding his experiences in the Bochnia Ghetto, Szebnie labor camp, Auschwitz and a death march

Testimony of Zwi Hirsch Feld, born in Krakow, 1928, regarding his experiences in the Bochnia Ghetto, Szebnie labor camp, Auschwitz and a death march His childhood in Bochnia, a quintessential Jewish settlement; synagogues; learns in a "heder" and yeshiva; a large family with seven children. Escape of the men at the outbreak of war, and their return; concentration in the Bochnia Ghetto and labor for the German Army in factories that had been established by wealthy Jews, 1942-1943; deportation to Szebnie; labor in the railroad station and oil refineries; deportation to Auschwitz; futile labor moving stones from side to side after a selection; deportation in cattle cars to labor in subterranean coal mines; improvement in conditions until January 1945; death march to Buchenwald, January 1945; liberation by Allied Forces, May 1945. His great strength of belief kept him alive throughout the entire war period; dysentery illness rescues him from the overeating done by some of the survivors; organizations assemble youths to help them convalesce and make aliya to Eretz Israel; separation into a religious group and his stay with them for several months; attempts by the organization's clerks, Bund members, to persuade them to stay in France and not make aliya to Eretz Israel; learns with Rabbi Chaikin in a yeshiva; meets Rabbi Binyamin Mintz and Rabbi Mashkovski who help them to make illegal immigration on the "Biriah" ship; learns in the "Sfat Emet" yeshiva; marriage and rehabilitation.