Ann H. Holocaust testimony (HVT-288) [videorecording] / interviewed by Gloria Demby and Norman Blumenthal, June 24, 1984.

New York, N.Y. : Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies at Yale, 1984.

1 videorecording (1 hr., 51 min.) : col.

English

Associated material: Hershkowitz, Ann. Interview 2278. Visual History Archive, USC Shoah Foundation. Access at https://vha.usc.edu.

Videotape testimony of Ann H., who was born in Chrzanów, Poland in 1925. She describes her religious childhood; increased antisemitism from 1933 on; German bombing in 1939; her brothers' departure for the Russian zone and her sister's to a forced labor camp; selection in 1940 when she and her sister were separated from her parents, whom she never saw again; deportation with her sister to Sosnowiec, then to Germany; and work as slave laborers. She recalls that despite horrendous work and living conditions, they always thought they would survive. Mrs. S. tells of worsening conditions in several camps; evacuation by foot to what they thought was Auschwitz, but later learned was Bergen-Belsen; separation from her sister; conditions in block 216; cutting wood for pyres because there were too many bodies for the crematoria; becoming indifferent to the dead all around; trading a ring to be with her sister; contracting typhus; liberation by the British; the ensuing chaos and hearing about cannibalism; her sister's death six weeks later; meeting her husband; learning one sister and one brother had survived; and emigration to England, then to the United States. She discusses the difficulty of telling of her experience after the war; not telling her children when they were young, fearing it would affect them; her sense of obligation to do so now; and her continuing nightmares.

June 01, 2002

Ann H. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-288). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Ann H. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-288). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.

Oral histories (document genres)