Title
Serena N. Holocaust testimony (HVT-179) [videorecording] / interviewed by Eva Kantor and Dori Laub, November 7, 1982.
Notes
Associated material: Irene W. Holocaust testimony [sister] (HVT-65), Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
Associated material: Rose A. Holocaust testimony [aunt] (HVT-183), Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
Summary
Videotape testimony of Serena N., the oldest of six children, who was born in Poprad, Czechoslovakia, in 1927. Mrs. N. discusses family life before the war; the effects of the Hungarian occupation in 1938; the initial phase of the German occupation in 1944; and her family's deportations to the brick factory in Munkács and, four weeks later, to Auschwitz. She recalls her separation from all family members except her younger sister, with whom she surived the war; conditions in A Lager in Birkenau, where she was interned; sustaining relationships in the camp with her sister, two aunts, and a young woman from her home town; and her work in the "Canada" Kommando, which gave her a close view of the horrors of the camp. Mrs. N. describes the revolt of the Sonderkommando shortly before the camp's liquidation; the death march in January, 1945 from Auschwitz to Ravensbrück and later to Leslau and Neustadt/Glewe; and her liberation. She also speaks of preserving the memory with her family, and of the difference in the ways she and her sister remember the experience.