Sara K. Holocaust testimony (HVT-4162) [videorecording], January 6, and January 13, 2000.

Tel Aviv, Israel : Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 2000.

2 videorecordings (5 hr., 39 min.) : col.

Hebrew

This testimony is in Hebrew.

Videotape testimony of Sara K., who was born in Będzin, Poland in 1923, one of six children. She recounts completing public school at age fifteen; participating in Hashomer Hatzair; German invasion; hiding briefly with non-Jews, then an uncle in Zawiercie; her father's death; one brother's deportation; working in a clothing factory; round-up of her mother and one younger sibling (she never saw them again); her brother hiding from the Jewish police; brief incarceration in his place; separation from two siblings (she never saw them again); hiding in a bunker with her younger brother, aunt, and others; discovery by Germans; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; separation from her brother (she never saw him again); slave labor digging pits; forming a group with four others; sharing food with each other; hospitalization; a doctor saving her from selection; assignment sorting clothing of the dead; the Sonderkommando uprising; a death march, then train transfer to Ravensbrück (her friends supported her en route); transfer to Malchow; slave labor in a munitions factory; transfer by the Red Cross to Malmö; assistance from Hechalutz members; living for two months in Doverstorp, then Ljungsbro; moving to a Deror kibbutz in Norrköping; a visit by Ben-Gurion; illegal emigration to Palestine from Göteborg; interdiction by the British; incarceration on Cyprus; marriage; a lecture by Golda Meir; release; living on a kibbutz to the present time; and the births of two children. Ms. K. notes losing her belief in God due to her experiences; the importance of her group of friends to her survival; Israelis expressing disbelief in her experiences, and subsequently not sharing them with her children; persistent painful memories; and nightmares that have abated a bit recently.

June 01, 2002

Sara K. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-4162). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Sara K. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-4162). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Oral histories (document genres)