Olga V. Holocaust testimony (HVT-2562) [videorecording] / interviewed by Joni-Sue Blinderman, June 2, 1993.

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

1 videorecording (1 hr., 44 min.) : col.

English

Associated material: Vilko, Olga. Interview 692. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation. Access at https://vha.usc.edu.

Videotape testimony of Olga V., who was born in Kralovo nad Tisou, Czechoslovakia (presently Korolevo, Ukraine) in 1921. She recalls her Orthodox, upper-middle class family; attending various schools, including one in Sevluš (Vynohradiv) and a Hebrew gymnasium in Munkacs (Mukacheve); Hungarian occupation in 1939; anti-Jewish measures; transport to Sevljus after Passover in 1944; ghettoization; deportation to Auschwitz six weeks later; initial placement in the Zigeunerlager (Gypsy Lager); male prisoners throwing them bread during appels; transfer to another barrack; volunteering to work to obtain extra things; transfer to Lichtwerden-Freudenthal in October 1944; forced labor weaving material for summer uniforms; improved conditions; some prisoners obtaining extra food from British POWs; liberation by Soviet troops in May 1945; returning home; learning her brother had been killed; antisemitic hostility when attempting to reclaim property; moving to Prague; marriage to a survivor from her town; and emigration to the United States in 1948. Mrs. V notes she has difficulty believing her own experiences occurred and expresses her opinion that Budapest's Jewish leaders "sold out" rural Hungarian Jews. She also believes that the United States was tacitly implicated in the Holocaust by its inaction.

June 01, 2002

Olga V. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2562). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Olga V. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2562). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Oral histories (document genres)