Beba L. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Beba L., who was born in Vilna, Poland in 1925, the oldest of four children. She recalls her father's emphasis on Jewish education; attending private school; aspiring to a university education; Soviet occupation; German invasion in June 1941; anti-Jewish restrictions; hearing about mass killings at Ponary; ghettoization in September 1941; her father arranging her escape with assistance from a Polish officer; obtaining false papers; hiding on a farm; returning to the ghetto to be with her parents, although she never saw her family again; working for the Judenrat; witnessing executions while working in Gestapo headquarters; the underground's final attempt at a military battle; the ghetto's liquidation in September 1943; transfer to Kaiserwald; working in a munitions factory in Ri?ga, then Torun?; deportation to Stutthof in October 1944; Norwegian prisoners of war sabotaging a bomb that would have killed all the prisoners on a boat; hiding in a forest; liberation by British troops; recovering in Neuteich; traveling to Helsingborg, Sweden; contacting her uncle in New York; and emigrating to the United States in 1947. Mrs. L. discusses sharing childhood memories with her children, but not telling them about her Holocaust experiences until recently, and the daily pervasiveness of these memories.

2 videocassettes