Zoe R. Holocaust testimony (HVT-4053) [videorecording] / interviewed by Yannis Thanassekos and Michel Rosenfeldt, October 23, 1996.

Brussels, Belgium : Fondation Auschwitz, 1996.

1 videorecording (4 hr., 30 min.) : col.

French

This testimony is in French.

Videotape testimony of Zoe R., who was born in Cluj, Romania in 1925, an only child. She recounts her parents' divorce when she was three; attending the school of a Neolog synagogue; participating in Hashomer Hatzair; Hungarian occupation; antisemitic legislation; German invasion in spring 1944; round-up with her mother to a building with thousands of other Jews; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; separation from her mother (she never saw her again); fellow prisoners holding her when she fainted during an appell; frequent selections; transfer to Frankfurt; slave labor for Organisation Todt; brief hospitalization; transfer six weeks later to the Ravensbrück tent camp, then Zillerthal; slave labor in a textile factory; receiving sugar from the Red Cross at Christmas; transfer to Nordhausen; slave labor in a munitions factory; sabotaging production; writing poetry; a death march to Morgenstern; escaping with four others; a German soldier bringing them food; capture by a SS man; escaping again; liberation by United States troops; convalescing on a farm; traveling to Namur; living in Jambes, Dave, and Brussels; learning an uncle had survived; marriage to a survivor; the births of two children; and learning her father was in Israel. Ms. R. discusses sharing her experiences with her husband in front of their children; pervasive painful memories and nightmares; visiting Cluj in 1962, of which she has fond memories despite not receiving help from the non-Jews there; and her husband's death at a young age.

June 01, 2002

Zoe R. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-4053). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Zoe R. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-4053). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Oral histories (document genres)