{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/5q4rj49x08/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Sidney G."]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/005/original/Fortunoff-Logo.png?1549333634","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eSidney G. was born on July 7th, 1927 in Czarnów, Poland, which is located between Krakow and Auschwitz. He was the second child of five children, with two brothers and two sisters. His family had been tailors for four generations. He recalls a happy childhood with a secular and Hebrew school education, and had training to become a tailor himself, as father taught him sewing every day. Sidney was also the delivery boy for his family’s tailor shop. \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eSidney’s parents were loving and caring. On Shabbat, the extended family would come together to celebrate. He recalls little anti-Semitism, despite a lot of contact with gentiles in his school and among his friends. Both schooling and friendships were terminated by the German invasion of Poland in 1939. Soon thereafter at the age of 12 (though he told the Germans he was 19), Sidney was taken away to perform forced labor. The separation from his family was final: he would never see any of them again.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eSidney soon learned that his life was now to be consumed by the strenuous building of barracks for the Germans, periodic beatings, hunger, and sleeping outside in the mud. He received occasional letters from his family, which were censored by the Germans. The letters sometimes arrived with a gift of bread that had become hard and moldy during the journey. Sidney was so hungry that he ate it anyway. After a year and a half, Sidney had heard nothing more from his parents and learned from an acquaintance that they were no longer alive. \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eSidney's work detail consisted of building labor camps in Upper Silesia, which also involved the building of roads, and moving from construction site to construction site. For some time, he seems to have passed himself off as a Pole. The workers were still wearing their own clothes, which were marked to identify them as prisoners, and their heads were partially shorn to reduce their chances of successful escape. Later they wore prison garb with striped uniforms and wooden clogs. \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eEventually Sidney was incarcerated in Gross-Rosen Concentration Camp. From here he has his most painful memories: He witnessed a mass killing of babies, among other atrocities. He was forced to empty the gas chamber and to wheel the bodies of murdered Jewish women to the crematorium. At this point, Sidney longed to be put out of his misery and granted the grace of death.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eSidney’s work increasingly started to include cleaning up after bombardments. He also was involved in rebuilding facilities that had been bombed. His constant handling of bricks caused the skin of his fingers to break open and made them bare to the bone. When he had to carry hot tar, he burnt himself with every spill. Only after he developed skills as a bricklayer, could he experience his work as something he could master.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eDespite feeling disgraced, disgusted, and horrified at the depths to which humanity can fall, Sidney recalls seeing a scrap of human feeling left in one SS guard, who showed him how to lay bricks, left pieces of bread for him and tried to protect him from the cold. \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eWhen the Russians approached, Gross-Rosen was evacuated, and Sidney and his fellow inmates was taken to Dachau Concentration Camp. Here Sidney unloaded trains filled with weapons seized by the German Army and was assigned to repair them, but in an act of defiance, he hid crucial parts, thus rendering the guns unusable. Prisoners were also taken to Munich to clean up rubble. Sidney was happy with this work, despite seeing limbs and heads and a world blown to pieces, since going into the bombing sites promised the possibility of finding a scrap of food.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eSidney was liberated in Dachau by the US Army. He was given a gun to take revenge on German civilians, but he could not bring himself to kill anyone, although he was deeply enraged with the lack of knowledge the locals displayed about the concentration camp. An American GI befriended Sidney, and his friend's family arranged to bring Sydney to the USA to stay with them in New York. Eventually Sidney settled in New Haven, Connecticut with a friend from the camps. He married a woman whom he had first met in a DP camp in Germany. They have two daughters and four grandchildren. To this day, Sidney continues to run a tailor shop.\u003c/p\u003e (Abstract)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":[]}},{"label":{"en":["Agent"]},"value":{"en":["Sydney G., 1927-07-07 (Interviewee)","Laub, Dori, 1937-06-08 - 2018-06-23 (Interviewer)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject"]},"value":{"en":["video tapes (topical)","forced labor (topical)","Oral histories (document genres) (genre_form)","Gross-Rosen Concentration Camp (Person Or Corporate Body)","Flossenbürg Concentration Camp (Person or Corporate Body)","Gröditz Sub-Concentration Camp (Person or Corporate Body)","Hersbruck Sub-Concentration Camp (Person or Corporate Body)","Dachau Concentration Camp (Person or Corporate Body)","Neu-Freimann DP Camp (Person or Corporate Body)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Coverage"]},"value":{"en":["New Haven, Conn. (Place of Recording)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English (primary)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Relation"]},"value":{"en":["Sidney G. Interview za574. Interview Archive „Forced Labor 1939-1945“. Access at https://archiv.zwangsarbeit-archiv.de/en/interviews/za574 (conforms to)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Identifier"]},"value":{"en":["za574 (Source Identifier)"]}}],"summary":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eSidney G. was born on July 7th, 1927 in Czarn\u0026oacute;w, Poland, which is located between Krakow and Auschwitz. He was the second child of five children, with two brothers and two sisters. His family had been tailors for four generations. He recalls a happy childhood with a secular and Hebrew school education, and had training to become a tailor himself, as father taught him sewing every day. Sidney was also the delivery boy for his family\u0026rsquo;s tailor shop.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eSidney\u0026rsquo;s parents were loving and caring. On Shabbat, the extended family would come together to celebrate. He recalls little anti-Semitism, despite a lot of contact with gentiles in his school and among his friends. Both schooling and friendships were terminated by the German invasion of Poland in 1939. Soon thereafter at the age of 12 (though he told the Germans he was 19), Sidney was taken away to perform forced labor. The separation from his family was final: he would never see any of them again.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eSidney soon learned that his life was now to be consumed by the strenuous building of barracks for the Germans, periodic beatings, hunger, and sleeping outside in the mud. He received occasional letters from his family, which were censored by the Germans. The letters sometimes arrived with a gift of bread that had become hard and moldy during the journey. Sidney was so hungry that he ate it anyway. After a year and a half, Sidney had heard nothing more from his parents and learned from an acquaintance that they were no longer alive.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eSidney's work detail consisted of building labor camps in Upper Silesia, which also involved the building of roads, and moving from construction site to construction site. For some time, he seems to have passed himself off as a Pole. The workers were still wearing their own clothes, which were marked to identify them as prisoners, and their heads were partially shorn to reduce their chances of successful escape. Later they wore prison garb with striped uniforms and wooden clogs.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eEventually Sidney was incarcerated in Gross-Rosen Concentration Camp. From here he has his most painful memories: He witnessed a mass killing of babies, among other atrocities. He was forced to empty the gas chamber and to wheel the bodies of murdered Jewish women to the crematorium. At this point, Sidney longed to be put out of his misery and granted the grace of death.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eSidney\u0026rsquo;s work increasingly started to include cleaning up after bombardments. He also was involved in rebuilding facilities that had been bombed. His constant handling of bricks caused the skin of his fingers to break open and made them bare to the bone. When he had to carry hot tar, he burnt himself with every spill. Only after he developed skills as a bricklayer, could he experience his work as something he could master.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eDespite feeling disgraced, disgusted, and horrified at the depths to which humanity can fall, Sidney recalls seeing a scrap of human feeling left in one SS guard, who showed him how to lay bricks, left pieces of bread for him and tried to protect him from the cold.\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eWhen the Russians approached, Gross-Rosen was evacuated, and Sidney and his fellow inmates was taken to Dachau Concentration Camp. Here Sidney unloaded trains filled with weapons seized by the German Army and was assigned to repair them, but in an act of defiance, he hid crucial parts, thus rendering the guns unusable. Prisoners were also taken to Munich to clean up rubble. Sidney was happy with this work, despite seeing limbs and heads and a world blown to pieces, since going into the bombing sites promised the possibility of finding a scrap of food.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eSidney was liberated in Dachau by the US Army. He was given a gun to take revenge on German civilians, but he could not bring himself to kill anyone, although he was deeply enraged with the lack of knowledge the locals displayed about the concentration camp. An American GI befriended Sidney, and his friend's family arranged to bring Sydney to the USA to stay with them in New York. Eventually Sidney settled in New Haven, Connecticut with a friend from the camps. He married a woman whom he had first met in a DP camp in Germany. They have two daughters and four grandchildren. To this day, Sidney continues to run a tailor shop.\u003c/p\u003e"]},"provider":[{"id":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/005/original/Fortunoff-Logo.png?1549333634","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/207/988/small/ZA574_03_01_sd720p.mp4_1694791808.jpg?1694791810","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2227/collection_resources/107100/file/207988","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 3 - ZA574_03_01_sd720p.mp4"]},"duration":3706.6,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/207/988/small/ZA574_03_01_sd720p.mp4_1694791808.jpg?1694791810","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2227/collection_resources/107100/file/207988/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2227/collection_resources/107100/file/207988/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-fortunoff.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/207/988/original/ZA574_03_01_sd720p.mp4?1694791803","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":3706.6,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2227/collection_resources/107100/file/207988","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[]},{"id":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2227/collection_resources/107100/file/207992","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 2 of 3 - ZA574_03_02_sd720p.mp4"]},"duration":3811.64,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/207/992/small/ZA574_03_02_sd720p.mp4_1694807035.jpg?1694807036","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2227/collection_resources/107100/file/207992/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2227/collection_resources/107100/file/207992/content/2/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-fortunoff.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/207/992/original/ZA574_03_02_sd720p.mp4?1694807029","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":3811.64,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2227/collection_resources/107100/file/207992","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[]},{"id":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2227/collection_resources/107100/file/207994","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 3 of 3 - ZA574_03_03_sd720p.mp4"]},"duration":2506.56,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/207/994/small/ZA574_03_03_sd720p.mp4_1694844922.jpg?1694844923","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2227/collection_resources/107100/file/207994/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2227/collection_resources/107100/file/207994/content/3/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-fortunoff.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/207/994/original/ZA574_03_03_sd720p.mp4?1694844918","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":2506.56,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2227/collection_resources/107100/file/207994","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[]}]}