Sigmund Mandelbaum lived in Działoszyce, Poland with his highly observant family until, finding Działoszyce too small, he moved to Łódź.
At 15, says Sigmund, “My heart told me to learn a trade.” To his family’s embarrassment, he became a painter. In the concentration camps, the skill saved his life. During the war Sigmund became a forced laborer. He escaped from the Płaszów camp and hid on a farm. He departed however, upon learning that farmers sometimes killed families they hid and stole their belongings. Sigmund walked to Krakow, but there he was recaptured. He spent the next three years in concentration camps – Auschwitz, Stuttgart, Stutthof, Buchenwald and finally Theresienstadt, from which he was liberated. Sigmund and his nephew, Jack Mandelbaum, emigrated to the United States in 1946.
Of Blessed Memory
1910 – 2004
Family photographs are the property of the survivor’s family and are used here with permission. Portraits are copyrighted by the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education. No photographs may be used or reproduced without permission.
©2013 Midwest Center for Holocaust Education
Testimonies may be used for individual research with proper citation. All other uses require written permission from MCHE. The above video testimony is edited from a full-length testimony that may be viewed onsite at the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education or at the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale University