Rachel M. Holocaust testimony (HVT-1590) [videorecording] / interviewed by Devorah Mann, October 15, 1990.

New York, N.Y. : A Living Memorial to the Holocaust-Museum of Jewish Heritage, 1990.

1 videorecording (2 hr., 20 min.) : col.

English

Associated material: Mermelstein, Rachel. Interview 16588. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation. Access at https://vha.usc.edu.

Videotape testimony of Rachel M., who was born in Sighet, Romania in 1929, one of six children. She recalls Hungarian occupation; her father's service in a forced labor battalion; his return over a year later; ghettoization; non-Jewish neighbors bringing them food; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau in summer 1944; separation from her family; finding her sister; volunteering for work; her sister's selection for transfer; trading with another set of sisters to remain together; their transfer to Christianstadt after seven weeks; improved conditions; slave labor in a munitions factory and her sister's in an asbestos mine; transfer to a privileged kitchen job; using her influence to get he sister a better job; older prisoners trying to educate them; a six week death March beginning in January; train transfer to Bergen-Belsen; pervasive disease, death, and starvation; liberation by British troops; hospitalization; learning no other family survived; transfer to Sweden; attending school in Stockholm; her sister's emigration to the United States; marriage to an American; and her emigration in 1955. Ms. M. discusses her sister's premature death resulting from work in the asbestos mine; her close relationship with her daughters and grandchildren; and surviving due to luck. She shows photographs.

June 01, 2002

Rachel M. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-1590). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Rachel M. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-1590). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Oral histories (document genres)