Testimony of Benno Barak Kalman, born in Lodz, Poland, 1922, regarding his experiences in Selchow, Wittenberg, the Lodz Ghetto, Auschwitz and other places

Testimony of Benno Barak Kalman, born in Lodz, Poland, 1922, regarding his experiences in Selchow, Wittenberg, the Lodz Ghetto, Auschwitz and other places Life before the war; from a secular family; membership in Gordonia; attends a local elementary school; work at a printing press. German occupation, 1939; volunteers for forced labor in Germany, December 1939; life in the Selchow camp; labor preparing construction sites; construction work; agricultural labor; labor in a welding workshop and as train engineer, 1941; deportation to Wittenberg by train, 1941; camp life including construction work; abuse by a Jewish cook; evacuation of the sick, July 1942; escape to the Lodz Ghetto; arrest and transfer to prison on orders from the Gestapo, August 1942; request for amnesty on his behalf written by Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, the Lodz Judenrat head; release from prison; ghetto life including work in a carpentry workshop; "Aktion" against children and the elderly (Sperre), 1942; liquidation of the Lodz Ghetto, 1944; deportation to Auschwitz by train; camp life; transfer to Kaufering; camp life including volunteering for labor in Utting; transfer to Utting; camp life including labor in excavations for building; labor in the home of the camp commandant; sale of cigarettes; death march to Dachau; camp life; evacuation of Dachau; death march to Austria; flight of the German guards, 02 May 1945. Hospitalization; transfer to Munich; transfer to Regensburg; life in the Regensburg DP camp until 1945; aliya to Israel on the ship, "Transylvania", 1948.