Helen R. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Helen R., who was born in 1929 in Ti?a?chiv Czechoslovakia (presently Ukraine), the oldest in a large Hasidic family. She recounts cordial relations with non-Jews; Hungarian occupation in 1939; her father's conscription into a slave labor battalion; anti-Jewish restrictions; harassment by locals; her father's return in March 1944; German invasion; ghettoization; obtaining food from Hungarian friends; her father instructing her and her brother to escape; her unwillingness to leave her family; her brother's escape to Budapest; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; remaining with one sister; one visit from her father when he gave them food (she never saw him again); her sister's selection for death; losing her will to live; transfer to Horneburg; working in an airplane factory; receiving food from a German civilian worker; transfer to Porta Westfalica; a death march to Fallersleben; liberation by United States troops; assistance from the Red Cross; returning to Czechoslovakia; learning her brother had survived; living in Bratislava, then with an uncle in Sudetenland; enrolling with a group in Prague to go to England; living in a group home in Dublin; emigration to the United States; and raising two children. Ms. R. discusses continuing anger arising from her experiences; her children's reluctance to hear her story; and her teaching career.
Extent and Medium
2 videocassettes
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., Helen, -- 1929-
Corporate Bodies
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
- International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
- Porta Westfalica (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Holocaust survivors.
- Hungarian occupation.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Death marches.
- Child survivors.
- Forced labor.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Sisters.
- Fathers and daughters.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Jews -- Ukraine -- Ti︠a︡chiv.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Video tapes.
- Women.
- Mutual aid.
- Postwar experiences.
- Survivor-child relations.
- Postwar effects.
Places
- Czechoslovakia.
- Ti︠a︡chiv (Ukraine)
- Bratislava (Slovakia)
- Prague (Czech Republic)
- Sudetenland (Czech Republic)
- Dublin (Ireland)
- Ti︠a︡chiv ghetto.
- Fallersleben (Germany : Concentration camp)
- Horneburg (Lower Saxony, Germany : Concentration camp)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat