Helen D. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Helen D., who was born in a town near Khust, Czechoslovakia in 1920. She recounts attending public school; Hungarian occupation; anti-Jewish restrictions; ghettoization; transfer to Mel?nytsya-Podil?s?ka; forced labor cleaning streets; working as a dressmaker; deportation of her mother and five sisters to Auschwitz (none returned); remaining with her father, brother, and another sister; transfer to Bors?a; capture of her brother and father (she never saw them again); escaping with her sister from the ghetto in September 1943; hiding in a forest, then briefly with a Polish woman; building two bunkers to house twenty-five Jews each; sharing food; one bunker's discovery, and the other's collapse in 1944, causing many deaths, including her sister; hiding in a barn; liberation by Soviet troops; escaping to Chernivt?s?i to avoid conscription for forced labor; traveling to Prague in May 1945; serving as a nurse in the Czech army; moving to Teplice in October; opening a dressmaking shop; contacting an uncle in New York via the Red Cross; marriage to a survivor in May 1946; receiving an affidavit from her uncle; traveling illegally to Germany; living in a displaced persons camp near Vienna; and emigration to Montre?al, then to the United States in October 1953.
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
- D., Helen, -- 1920-
Corporate Bodies
- International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
Subjects
- Hiding.
- Forests.
- Bunkers.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Postwar experiences.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Forced labor.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Hungarian occupation.
- Refugee camps.
- Sisters.
- Escapes.
- Women.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
Places
- Borșa (Baia Mare, Romania)
- Chernivt︠s︡i (Ukraine)
- Prague (Czech Republic)
- Teplice (Czech Republic)
- Montréal (Québec)
- Czechoslovakia.
- Melʹnytsya-Podilʹsʹka (Ukraine)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat