Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Henry Konstam - October 25, 1991

Contents

An interview with Henry Konstam, a Holocaust survivor, conducted by Dr. Sidney Bolkosky, Professor of History at the University of Michigan--Dearborn. Born in Łódź, Poland, Henry Konstam and his five siblings were deported to the Łódź ghetto in 1940. In the ghetto, Henry volunteered to go to a labor camp in Gronow where he remained for two and a half years until he was sent to a labor camp in Posen. From Posen, Henry was transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and later to Jaworzno. In the last days of the war, Henry survived a march from Jaworzno to Dachau before escaping into the surrounding woods. After crawling to a nearby farm for food, he was captured and imprisoned in a German jail until the end of the war that occurred a few days later. Henry was reunited, after the war, with his only surviving family members, his brother and sister.

  1. Introduction
  2. Family
  3. Pre-War Life
  4. School
  5. Pre-War Anti-Semitism
  6. Pilsudski
  7. The Volksdeutsch
  8. Nationalism
  9. Religious Life
  10. Pilgrimage to Palestine
  11. Family Business
  12. Orzokow
  13. Political Consciousness
  14. Political Parties
  15. Hasidic Dress
  16. Sister in Palestine
  17. Germany
  18. Outbreak of War
  19. March into Orzorkow
  20. The Wehrmacht
  21. Jewish Deportation
  22. The Łódź Ghetto
  23. Life in the Ghetto
  24. Moving into the Ghetto
  25. Moving into the Ghetto II
  26. Gronow
  27. Advantageous Authority
  28. Labor Duty
  29. Gronow II
  30. Camp Supervisors
  31. Cause for Deportation
  32. Camp Laborers
  33. Sickness in the Labor Camp
  34. Labor Camp Conditions
  35. The Blockältestes
  36. The Camp Gallows
  37. Camp Conditions
  38. Fellow Prisoners
  39. Hunger
  40. Death of Parents
  41. Extermination Camps
  42. Extermination Camps II
  43. Auschwitz and Chelmno
  44. Train to Auschwitz
  45. Arrival at Auschwitz
  46. Impression of Auschwitz
  47. Auschwitz-Birkenau
  48. The Kapos
  49. Religion in the Camps
  50. Spaichingen
  51. Death March
  52. Death March II
  53. After Escape From Death March
  54. The War Ends
  55. Recuperation
  56. Jaworzno
  57. Jaworzno Work Detail
  58. Punishment of Prisoners
  59. Surviving the Camps
  60. Extermination of Children
  61. Camp Guards
  62. Death March From Jaworzno
  63. Blechhammer
  64. Buchenwald
  65. Spaichingen II
  66. Talking About Experiences
  67. Nightmares
  68. Hunger II
  69. Family Reunion
  70. Immigration to the U.S.
  71. Living in Detroit
  72. Concluding Thoughts on the Holocaust

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