Magda S. Holocaust testimony (HVT-2239) [videorecording] / interviewed by Joni-Sue Blinderman, January 4, 1993.

New York, NY : A Living Memorial to the Holocaust-Museum of Jewish Heritage, 1993.

1 videorecording (2 hr., 34 min.) : col.

English

Associated material: Spiegel, Magda. Interview 3557. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation. Access at https://vha.usc.edu.

Videotape testimony of Magda S., who was born in a farming town near Munkacs, Czechoslovakia. She recalls moving to Munkacs; her close, extended family's happy, observant life; attending Jewish school; Hungarian occupation in 1938; antisemitic measures; her brother's conscription into a Hungarian forced labor battalion; German invasion; ghettoization with her parents in April 1944; the trauma of witnessing her uncle's beard being cut; internment in a brick factory; deportation to Auschwitz; separation from her parents (she never saw them again); being forced to discard her photos; remaining with her cousin; transfer to Stutthof and Bromberg; forced labor; extreme cold, hunger, and beatings; a death march; the guards' disappearance; staying with her cousin and another prisoner; liberation by Soviet troops; favorable treatment because she spoke Russian; returning to Munkacs via Warsaw; reunion with her brother; running a cigarette factory; her neighbors' refusal to return her family's property; smuggling herself to Czechoslovakia with her brother; living in Marienbad (Mariánské Lázně); and their emigration to the United States in 1949. Mrs. S. discusses the impact of constant hunger; continuing fears when seeing trains; her unbroken spirit; and belief that her parents would be proud of her. She shows photographs.

June 01, 2002

Magda S. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2239). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Magda S. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2239). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Oral histories (document genres)