Bela Y. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3552) [videorecording], July 5, 1993.

Tel Aviv, Israel : Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1993.

1 videorecording (2 hr.) : col.

Hebrew

This testimony is in Hebrew.

Videotape testimony of Bela Y., who was born in Thessalonikē, Greece in 1924, the youngest of ten children. She recounts her family's orthodoxy and affluence; ghettoization; transfer to the Baron de Hirsch quarter; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; separation from her family; deaths from starvation and disease; slave labor; a German guard twice saving her from selection; fellow prisoners sharing extra food; briefly encountering a brother; a guard injuring her when she insulted him; smuggling water to a cousin; sorting shoes of the murdered Jews; taking valuables hidden in the shoes to trade for food; transfer to the Union Kommando munitions factory; interrogation after prisoner destruction of a crematorium; a severe beating for smuggling notes; assistance from other prisoners; a death march to Wrocław; helping a friend from Thessalonikē; train transfer to Ravensbrück (many died en route); receiving Red Cross packages; becoming very ill; removal of a kidney in a nearby hospital; liberation by United States troops; traveling to Berlin; Soviet soldiers raping a friend; returning home in December; Soviets finding SS among them en route and former prisoners beating the SS; antisemitic remarks by a man who had her family's property; emigration to Israel; many surgeries resulting from removal of her kidney during the war; and eventually having children.

June 01, 2002

Bela Y. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3552). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Bela Y. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3552). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Oral histories (document genres)