Esther F. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Esther F., who was born in approximately 1923, the eldest of six children. She recalls living in ?o?dz?; hunger due to extreme poverty; associating only with Jews; German invasion in 1939; ghettoization; one brother's death from tuberculosis; forced labor; her parents' deaths from starvation; hiding with her siblings during round-ups; deportation with her sister and two younger brothers to Auschwitz/Birkenau in August 1943; separation from her brothers (she never saw them again); transfer to Bergen-Belsen; volunteering with her sister for transfer to Hamburg; slave labor in a factory; her sister's assignment to the kitchen, which resulted in having extra food; Allied bombings; a death march; being wounded by shrapnel, which remains in her to this day; assistance from local Germans and Allied prisoners of war they encountered; she and her sister helping each other; liberation by Soviet troops; traveling to Frankfurt; returning to Poland; traveling illegally to Czechoslovakia, Budapest, and Italy; marriage; her son's birth; and emigration to the United States in 1948.
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
- F., Esther, -- 1923?-
Corporate Bodies
- Bergen-Belsen (Concentration camp)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Postwar experiences.
- Postwar effects.
- Prisoners of war -- Germany.
- Hiding.
- Mutual aid.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Jews -- Poland -- Łódź.
- Forced labor.
- Sisters.
- Death marches.
- Women.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
Places
- Hamburg (Germany : Concentration camp)
- Łódź ghetto.
- Czechoslovakia.
- Frankfurt am Main (Germany)
- Italy.
- Budapest (Hungary)
- Łódź (Poland)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat