Maria S. Holocaust testimony (HVT-4266) [videorecording] / interviewed by Lawrence L. Langer, December 5, 2003.

New Haven, Conn. : Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 2003.

1 videorecording (2 hr., 24 min.) : col.

English

This testimony can only be used for education and research. It cannot be used for commercial purposes.

Videotape testimony of Maria S., who was born in Łódź, Poland in 1922, one of three children. She recounts her family's affluence; cordial relations with non-Jews; German invasion; ghettoization; her father's former employees smuggling food to them; forced factory labor; her father arranging to smuggle her, her brothers, and mother to relatives in Szydłowiec in 1941 (he was killed later attempting escape); forced transfer to Wierzbnik; incarceration in Starachowiece; slave labor in a munitions factory; receiving food from a civilian worker; sharing it with her mother; a mass killing of escapees; saving her mother and brother from selections (an aunt and uncle were shot); transfer to Auschwitz/Birkenau; smelling burning flesh; hauling stones; a German giving her shoes; transfer with her mother and two aunts to Bergen-Belsen; starvation, lice, and pervasive death; liberation; reunion with one brother (the other did not survive); her mother's convalescence in Switzerland; working in Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp with Josef Rosensaft and Sam Bloch; UNRRA assistance; returning to Łódź; attending high school and college; assistance from ORT; marriage; the birth of two children; an antisemitic incident; obtaining permission to visit her brother in the United States, provided her husband and daughters remained; and bringing them to the U.S. a year later by obtaining political asylum for them. Ms. S. discusses life in Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp, including establishing schools, competing political groups, and black marketeering. She shows objects, photographs, documents, publications, and a recording of her poetry.

December 19, 2003

Maria S. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-4266). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Maria S. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-4266). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Oral histories (document genres)