Rena R. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Rena R., who was born in Krako?w, Poland in 1917. She recounts her family's affluence and orthodoxy; her mother's death; her father's remarriage; marriage in 1936; her daughter's birth in 1937; anti-Jewish boycotts; one sister's emigration to Palestine; vacationing in Zakopane in summer 1939; German invasion; returning to Krako?w; moving to a village; her sister and mother-in-law joining her; a policeman warning them of a deportation; hiding in a barn for three weeks; walking to the Krako?w ghetto; hiding her daughter with her maid; slave labor in a uniform factory; deportation to P?aszo?w in March 1943; her husband's visits; public hangings; hospitalization; transfer with her sister to Auschwitz in 1944; liquidation of the Zigeunerlager (Gypsy Lager); transfer two months later to Lichtwerden; slave labor in a textile factory; starvation; liberation by Soviet troops in May 1945; walking to Krako?w; learning her husband, daughter, siblings and father had been killed; marriage in 1946; her son's birth; emigration to Sweden, Montre?al, then the United States; and her second husband's suicide. She discusses dehumanization in the camps; recurring nightmares, and not sharing her story with her children.
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
- R., Rena, -- 1917-
Corporate Bodies
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Płaszów (Concentration camp)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Postwar effects.
- Postwar experiences.
- Husband -- Death.
- Hospitals in concentration camps.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Hiding.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Nightmares.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Sisters.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Children -- Death.
- Husband and wife.
- Forced labor.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Jews -- Poland -- Kraków.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Video tapes.
- Women.
- Holocaust survivors.
Places
- Lichtwerden-Freudenthal (Czechoslovakia : Concentration camp)
- Kraków ghetto.
- Montréal (Québec)
- Sweden.
- Zakopane (Poland)
- Kraków (Poland)
- Poland.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat