Wiera G. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Wiera G., who was born in approximately 1921. She recalls a happy childhood in Vilna, Poland; participating in Hashomer Hatzair; learning dressmaking; Soviet occupation in 1939; Lithuanian independence; Soviet reoccupation; German invasion; her father's murder in Ponary; ghettoization in September 1941; murder of her grandparents at Ponary; slave labor in a uniform factory; hiding during round-ups; injuring her leg; hospitalization; deportation with her sister to Kaiserwald in 1943; slave labor in a silk factory in Strazdenhof; assistance from a Lithuanian doctor; sabotaging the work; transfer to Stutthof; briefly encountering her brother; working on a farm; assistance from French POWs; transfer back to Stutthof; her sister's death; a death march; placement on barges on the Baltic Sea; Norwegian POWs bringing them ashore; incarceration in Neustadt; SS machine gunning fifty Polish men; liberation by British troops on May 3; assistance from friends; convalescing in Glu?ckstadt; living in Neustadt displaced persons camp; UNRRA assistance; marriage; the birth of a son in 1946 and a daughter in 1948; emigration to the United States in 1950; and reunion with her brother in Israel in 1962. Ms. G. discusses the loss of most of her family; the role of the Vilna Judenrat; the importance to her survival of luck and friends; not discussing her experiences for many years, even with her children, leading to a nervous breakdown in 1978; and her life in the United States. She shows photographs.

3 videocassettes