Esther W. Holocaust testimony (HVT-2609) [videorecording] / interviewed by Joanne Weiner Rudof and Helen Katz, August 25, 1994.

New Haven, Conn. : Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1994.

1 videorecording (1 hr., 55 min.) : col.

English

Associated material: Wexler, Esther. Interview 22528. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation. Access at https://vha.usc.edu.

Videotape testimony of Esther W., who was born in Łódź, Poland in 1929. She recalls her comfortable childhood; her brother's emigration to Palestine in 1936; German invasion; anti-Jewish restrictions; moving with her family to Warsaw and Falenica in 1940; ghettoization in Warsaw; fleeing to Stopnica; joining her aunt in Staszów in 1942; her father's deportation; deportation with her aunt to Skarżysko (she never saw her mother and sister again); forced labor in a munitions factory; public hangings; her father visiting, sharing his bread, and arranging her transfer to his camp; his deportation; transfer with her friend to a camp near Leipzig in the spring of 1944; her friend's pregnancy and childbirth; and liberation from a death march by Soviet troops in the spring of 1945. Mrs. W. describes reunion with her father in Łódź; traveling with him to Feldafing; joining her brother in Israel in 1948; marriage; the birth of her sons; and emigrating with her family to the United States. She reflects upon the loss of her childhood; constant fear of illness or going to the wrong side during selections; never sharing her experiences with her husband and children; and continuing reluctance to discuss the war years.

June 01, 2002

Esther W. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2609). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Esther W. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2609). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Oral histories (document genres)