Helene R. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Helene R., who was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1923, into a large Orthodox family. Mrs. R. remembers attending a Polish school, yet not considering herself a Pole; the German occupation in 1939; being a nurse during the typhus epidemic in the ghetto; deportations of the sick in 1941; and moving with some of her family away from the ghetto to the forest, where they lived with a group of underground Jews and acquired false papers. She recalls her arrest while acting as a courier for the Wieliczka ghetto and her and her sister's leaving the underground group and the rest of the family to work as Polish non-Jews in Poland and in Germany, leading a "double life of fear." Postwar recollections include her work in a hospital for displaced persons; her marriage to a survivor; and her present sense of who she is and where she belongs.
Extent and Medium
2 videocassettes (3/4" u-matic)
Conditions Governing Access
This testimony is open with permission.
Conditions Governing Reproduction
Copyright has been transferred to the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. Use of this testimony requires permission of the Fortunoff Video Archive.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- R., Helene, -- 1923-
Subjects
- Holocaust survivors.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Video tapes.
- Women.
- Jews -- Poland -- Wieliczka.
- Jews -- Poland -- Warsaw.
- Brothers and sisters.
- Forced labor.
- Sisters.
- Jewish ghettos.
- False papers.
- Hiding.
- Forests.
Places
- Warsaw (Poland)
- Poland.
- Warsaw ghetto.
- Wieliczka (Poland)
- Wieliczka ghetto.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- ftamc