Marlis M. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3740) [videorecording] / interviewed by Annette Leo and Eva Geffers, June 6, 1996.

Potsdam, Germany : Moses Mendelssohn Zentrum für europäisch-jüdische Studien, Universität Potsdam, 1996.

1 videorecording (2 hr., 31 min.) : col.

German

This testimony is in German.

Videotape testimony of Marlis M., who was born in Hannover in 1932 to a Jewish father and German mother. She recounts her younger brother's birth in 1936; arrest in 1938 (her oldest brother was not with them); their release; her father leaving for Antwerp; viewing damage done during Kristallnacht; joining her father in summer 1939; returning shortly thereafter (her father remained); harassment in school because her father was Jewish; her younger brother's death from illness; learning her father was doing forced labor in the Harz Mountains; moving to a nearby village in winter 1943/44; a village woman taking them in despite being an avowed Nazi; visiting her father in Wendefurth; her older brother's conscription for forced labor by Organisation Todt; her father's deportation in February 1945; liberation by United States troops; her brother's return, then her father's; continuing to hide her Jewishness; joining the FDJ (anti-fascist youth movement); training as a kindergarten teacher in Blankenburg; marriage, and moving to Berlin. Ms. M. notes her continuing shame at being Jewish until later in life; her husband knowing, but not telling his family; having her children baptized to "protect" them; and not discussing the past with her parents or brother. She shows photographs.

June 01, 2002

Marlis M. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3740). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Marlis M. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3740). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Oral histories (document genres)