Sylvia M. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Sylvia M., who was born in Vilna, Poland (presently Vilnius, Lithuania) in approximately 1926, one of three sisters. She recounts attending a Jewish school; increasing antisemitism in the late 1930s; Soviet occupation in 1939; attending free public high school; brief Lithuanian independence; an antisemitic riot; Soviet reoccupation in 1940; German invasion in 1941; her father's forced labor; learning her uncle had been killed with many others; ghettoization in September 1941; her older sister smuggling food; transfer to Keilis due to her older sister's privileged position a furrier; her younger sister's selection (she never saw her again); deportation with her parents and older sister to Ri?ga, then Stutthof; separation from her father (she never saw him again); her sister risking her life to obtain extra food for their mother; transfer to Mu?hldorf; Hungarian prisoners sharing food; slave labor washing clothes; liberation by United States troops; living in Feldafing displaced persons camp; learning her parents and older sister had not survived; attending an ORT school; marriage to a survivor in 1946; her daughter's birth in 1948; and emigration to the United States in 1949. Ms. M. discusses nightmares resulting from her experiences, and not sharing her experiences with anyone, including her children, until they were older.
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
- M., Sylvia, -- 1926?-
Corporate Bodies
- Feldafing (Displaced persons camp)
- World ORT Union.
- Stutthof (Concentration camp)
- MuĚhldorf (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Postwar effects.
- Survivor-child relations.
- Postwar experiences.
- Mutual aid.
- Refugee camps.
- Concentration camp inmates -- Family relationships.
- Fathers and daughters.
- Mothers and daughters.
- Soviet occupation.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Child survivors.
- Nightmares.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Jews -- Lithuania -- Vilnius.
- Sisters.
- Forced labor.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Video tapes.
- Women.
- Holocaust survivors.
Places
- Vilna ghetto.
- Keilis (Vilnius, Lithuania : Concentration camp)
- RiĚga (Latvia : Concentration camp)
- Vilnius (Lithuania)
- Poland.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat