Testimony of Chaim Simcha, born in Thessaloniki, Greece, 1917, regarding his experiences as a Greek Army soldier in Athens, in Auschwitz, Katowice, Mauthausen and Gusen

Testimony of Chaim Simcha, born in Thessaloniki, Greece, 1917, regarding his experiences as a Greek Army soldier in Athens, in Auschwitz, Katowice, Mauthausen and Gusen Life before the war; attends a Talmud Torah; economic distress and help from the Jewish community Committee. Displays of antisemitism and pogrom, 1933; drafted into the Greek Army, 1938; military service in a military hospital; help in releasing Jewish soldiers from the Albanian front; transfer to a military camp in Athens, 1940; desertion from the army; return to Thessaloniki occupied by the German Army; escape to a village and his former commander, a physician in the military hospital; arrest and deportation to a labor camp; escape from the camp and return to Thessaloniki; "Aktions"; deportation to Auschwitz, May 1943; transfer to Katowice; camp life including forced labor; help from a Polish worker in obtaining food; transfer to Mauthausen; camp life including labor collecting corpses and burying them; transfer to Gusen; liberation by the US Army, May 1945. Move to Italy with help from the Jewish Brigade; help to Greek refugees; unsuccessful aliya attempt to Eretz Israel; detention in Cyprus; second aliya attempt to Eretz Israel, 1948.