Lillian R. Holocaust testimony (HVT-1247) [videorecording] / interviewed by Melissa Silverman and Bernard Weinstein, December 9, 1987.

Union, N.J. : Kean College Oral Testimonies Project, 1987.

1 videorecording (2 hr., 25 min.) : col.

English

Associated material: Ross, Lillian. Interview 39604. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation. Access at https://vha.usc.edu.

Videotape testimony of Lillian R., who was born in Łódź, Poland in 1922, one of four sisters. She recounts her family's affluence; her mother's grandfather, a prominent rabbi in Warsaw; attending private Jewish schools; antisemitic harassment; German invasion in September 1939; forced relocation with her family to Dębica in December; moving to Radom; ghettoization; her mother's deportation (she did not survive); transition of the ghetto into a camp; deportation with her father to Szydłowiec; their return to Radom, due to her sister's influence with a German official; marriage in 1943; hiding during a round-up; slave labor in a munitions factory; deportation to Majdanek, then Płaszów; slave labor with her sister in a brick factory; buying food from Polish civilian workers for her father and husband; transfer to Wieliczka, then back to Płaszów; deportation with her sister to Auschwitz/Birkenau; reunion with another sister; hospitalization; a prisoner-physician warning her of a selection; the departure of her two younger sisters in November 1944; the same physician saving her again; working as a dressmaker; a public hanging; a death march and train transfer to Ravensbrück, then Neustadt-Glewe; liberation by Soviet troops; returning to Łódź with her sister; reunion with her husband and a paternal aunt; traveling illegally to join her other sisters in Stuttgart; the death of her oldest sister; working for UNRRA; and emigration to the United States in March 1949. Ms. R. discusses her continuing faith, even in the camps; attributing her survival to her sisters and others who helped her; and not sharing her experiences with her children until they were older, wanting them to have a “normal” childhood. She shows photographs.

June 01, 2002

Lillian R. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-1247). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Lillian R. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-1247). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Oral histories (document genres)