Helen C. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Helen C., who was born in Lypcha, Ukraine (then the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy) in approximately 1917, one of five siblings. She recounts her family's orthodoxy; working on their farm; becoming a seamstress; Hungarian occupation in 1938; anti-Jewish restrictions; moving to Budapest in 1942; working as a housekeeper; incarceration in a brick factory; deportation to Ravensbru?ck; slave labor; being subjected to painful medical experiments; sharing food with a fellow prisoner; transfer to Rechlin after one year; praying to herself; escaping from a death march; liberation by Soviet troops; walking to Berlin; hospitalization; returning home in August 1945; reunion with her brother; traveling illegally to Prague, then Germany, with assistance from the Haganah; living in Bad Reichenhall displaced persons camp; assistance from the Joint and the Red Cross; marriage; her husband's job for UNRRA; recuperating from lung disease in a sanatorium; and emigration with her husband and brother to join relatives in the United States in 1949. Ms. C. notes the killing of fifty relatives; retaining her faith; nightmares of fleeing from Nazis; and sharing her experiences with her children.
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
- C., Helen, -- 1917?-
Corporate Bodies
- RavensbruĚck (Concentration camp)
- American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
- International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
- Rechlin (Concentration camp)
- Bad Reichenhall (Displaced persons camp)
- Haganah (Organization)
- United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.
Subjects
- Holocaust survivors.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Human experimentation in medicine.
- Forced labor.
- Death marches.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Women.
- Video tapes.
- Postwar effects.
- Postwar experiences.
- Mutual aid.
- Hungarian occupation.
- Refugee camps.
- Nightmares.
- Faith.
- Escapes.
- Survivor-child relations.
Places
- Budapest (Hungary)
- Berlin (Germany)
- Prague (Czech Republic)
- Austria.
- Lypcha (Ukraine)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat