Edyta S. Holocaust testimony (HVT-2136) [videorecording] / interviewed by Alberta Strage and David Herman, May 13, 1992.

London, England : British Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1992.

1 videorecording (2 hr., 58 min.) : col.

English

This testimony can only be used for education and research purposes. The testimony or excerpts from it cannot be used for transparencies, motion pictures, or television films.

Videotape testimony of Edyta S., who was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1929 to an affluent, assimilated family. She recounts her parents' divorce; living with her maternal grandparents and uncle; their Polish patriotism; her mother's remarriage; her grandmother's death in 1937; German invasion; briefly fleeing east; her grandfather's death in 1940 from abusive Germans; ghettoization; attending privately organized classes; stepping over the dead in the street becoming "normal"; lice infestation despite their cleanliness; Jewish police saving her from round-ups; her uncle's deportation; her parents' privileged factory jobs; hiding under her mother's work table; hiding in the attic when all the hidden children were collected; involvement with the ghetto resistance; assistance from the Polish underground to escape with her mother; obtaining false papers; moving frequently; wearing a cross and attending church; paying blackmailers; hearing antisemitic remarks when the ghetto was destroyed; working for the Polish underground; the Warsaw uprising; evacuation to Pruszków; assistance from a former Polish neighbor (her mother testified for her after the war); moving to Nadarzyn; liberation by Soviet troops in January 1945; returning to Warsaw; illegally traveling to Prague, then Germany, realizing her uncle and step-father had perished; living in Landsberg displaced persons camp, then Munich; marriage; emigration alone to the United States; her husband and mother joining her; her child's birth; her husband's death; and marriage five years later. Ms. S. details prewar and ghetto life, many close calls in hiding, and Jewish and non-Jewish people helping them survive.

June 01, 2002

Edyta S. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2136). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Edyta S. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2136). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Oral histories (document genres)