Karola D. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Karola D., who was born in ?o?dz? in approximately 1920, the tenth of eleven children. She recounts her family's orthodoxy and poverty; her parents' early deaths; the siblings remaining together until they married; attending public school; participating in Agudat Israel; German invasion; some siblings fleeing east; ghettoization; working in a factory; hiding during round-ups; attending a wedding; her sister-in-law giving birth (the child died); the deaths of some siblings; hiding during the ghetto's liquidation; being found; transport with her family to Auschwitz/Birkenau; remaining with her sister and sister-in-law; their transfer to Bergen-Belsen, then Magdeburg; slave labor in a munitions factory; a public hanging; being x-rayed twice, once as her sister (her sister had a spot on her lung), thus saving her from selection; a death march; French POWs giving them food; liberation; returning to ?o?dz?; reunion with a sister who had been in the Soviet Union; leaving Poland with assistance from Berih?ah; marriage in Reichenbach (presently Dzierz?onio?w, Poland); living in Vienna, then in Salzburg displaced persons camp; moving to Rome; her son's birth; and emigration to the United States in 1951. Ms. D. discusses feelings of utter humiliation in the camps; the importance of faith to her survival (she remains orthodox); the murder of most of her and her husband's families; and continuing nightmares.
Extent and Medium
3 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
- D., Karola, -- 1920?-
Corporate Bodies
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Agudat Israel.
- Bergen-Belsen (Concentration camp)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
- Beriḥah (Organization)
Subjects
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Jewish ghettos.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Women.
- Sisters.
- Faith.
- Concentration camp inmates -- Religious life.
- Jews -- Poland -- Łódź.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Forced labor.
- Concentration camp inmates -- Family relationships.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Nightmares.
- Refugee camps.
- Death marches.
- Prisoners of war -- Germany.
- Hiding.
- Mutual aid.
- Marriage in Jewish ghettos.
- Childbirth in Jewish ghettos.
- Postwar experiences.
- Postwar effects.
Places
- Poland.
- Łódź (Poland)
- Dzierżoniów (Poland)
- Vienna (Austria)
- Rome (Italy)
- Łódź ghetto.
- Reichenbach (Breslau, Germany)
- Magdeburg (Germany : Concentration camp)
- Salzburg (Austria : Refugee camp)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat