Helen F. Holocaust testimony (HVT-477) [videorecording] / interviewed by Sally Weinberg, December 20, 1984.

Cleveland, Ohio : National Council of Jewish Women, Holocaust Archive Project, 1984.

1 videorecording (2 hr., 9 min.) : col.

English

Videotape testimony of Helen F., who was born in Khust, Czechoslovakia (presently Ukraine) in approximately 1926, one of eleven children. She recounts her family's orthodoxy; Hungarian occupation; anti-Jewish restrictions and harassment; ghettoization; deportation to Auschwitz in 1944; separation from her parents and younger siblings (she never saw them again); remaining with her sisters; transfer to a farm; slave labor with two sisters digging anti-tank trenches; another sister working for a German soldier and sharing extra food with them; a death march; escaping with her sisters and two other girls; posing as non-Jews; receiving aid and shelter from farmers; denouncement as Jews; imprisonment; release due to a friendly Pole; working in a lumberyard; liberation by Soviet troops; meeting a cousin; working for the Soviets; hospitalization in Leipzig; traveling to Prague, then Budapest in May 1945; reunion with an uncle; living in Debrecen, then Prague; reunion with her older sister; moving to Leipheim displaced persons camp; marriage in 1946; and emigration to the United States in 1949 with assistance from the Joint. Ms. F. discusses the importance of her sisters to her survival; recurring nightmares; pervasive painful memories; and not sharing her experiences with her son.

June 01, 2002

Helen F. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-477). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Helen F. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-477). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Oral histories (document genres)