Shawn B. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Shawn B., who was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1940 and moved to Vilnius soon after. She recalls her mother putting a cross on her and leaving her outside the ghetto near a church on a Sunday; being taken home by a judge and his wife who were helping many Jews; not being allowed outside until she spoke Lithuanian; a brief visit from her mother (the judge had helped her escape from Kaiserwald); arrest with her foster family (they were killed); placement in prison with only women; a German taking her to adopt when the others were shot; placement in a Catholic orphanage; praying her mother would return after the war; her mother's arrival; briefly living in ?o?dz? and in Berlin for a year; emigration to the United States; her mother becoming a registered nurse; and her marriage. Ms. B. discusses not ever wanting to be indebted to anyone as a result of her experiences; her postwar identity as a Catholic and slowly feeling Jewish; integration of her mother's story into "Anya: A Novel"; and continuing gratitude to the family that saved her.
Extent and Medium
1 videocassette
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. This testimony or excerpts from it can only be used in video format. It cannot be used in print publications.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- B., Shawn, -- 1940-
Subjects
- Mothers and daughters.
- Jews -- Lithuania -- Vilnius.
- Foster parents.
- Escapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Women.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Child survivors.
- Postwar experiences.
- Hiding.
- Identification (Religion)
- Postwar effects.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, German.
- Orphanages -- Poland -- Vilnius.
Places
- Vilna ghetto.
- Łódź (Poland)
- Berlin (Germany)
- Warsaw (Poland)
- Vilnius (Lithuania)
- Poland.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat