Helen F. Holocaust testimony (HVT-2902) [videorecording] / interviewed by Joni-Sue Blinderman, January 31, 1994.

New York, N.Y. : A Living Memorial to the Holocaust-Museum of Jewish Heritage, 1994.

1 videorecording (1 hr., 42 min.) : col.

English

Associated material: Freibrun, Helen. Interview 17740. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation. Access at https://vha.usc.edu.

Videotape testimony of Helen F., who was born in Uz︠h︡horod, Czechoslovakia (presently Ukraine) in 1926. She recalls the warmth of her family's observances of Jewish holidays; her father's role as the cantor; cordial relations with non-Jews; sharing their home with relatives who had fled Germany; German occupation in spring 1944; ghettoization for four weeks; deportation to Auschwitz; separation from her parents upon arrival; brutal camp guards; starvation; lack of facilities for personal hygiene; frequent selections; receiving extra food from a female guard; suicides; a death march in December 1944; slave labor in an ammunition factory in Breslau; transfer to Mauthausen; going into shock when her friend was killed on the death march to Bergen-Belsen; liberation by British troops in April 1945; hospitalization for over a month; traveling to Budapest; living at Leipheim displaced persons camp for two years; meeting her future husband; and emigration to the United States in 1947. Mrs. F. notes her reluctance to reveal she was Jewish after the war and having her camp tattoo surgically removed. She shows photographs.

June 01, 2002

Helen F. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2902). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Helen F. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2902). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Oral histories (document genres)