Gabrielle S. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Gabrielle S., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1933. She recounts her father's family pharmacy; emigration to Amsterdam in 1938, intending to flee to Argentina; German invasion; expulsion from school; attending a Jewish school; anti-Jewish restrictions, including wearing the yellow star; disappearances of teachers and students after round-ups; learning two of her grandparents in Germany committed suicide rather than being deported; notice for deportation to Westerbork; giving her teddy bear to a non-Jewish friend (she returned it after the war); vermin, poor sanitary conditions, fear of weekly deportations, and quarreling; her maternal grandmother's suicide when her name was listed for deportation; her father working as a street cleaner and her mother as a housekeeper; frequent illnesses; deportation to Theresienstadt; slave labor transporting boxes of cremated ashes; frequent discussions of death; liberation by Soviet troops on May 8; returning to Amsterdam via Plzen? and Eindhoven; and emigration to the United States in 1950. Ms. S. discusses her and her mother's illnesses resulting from the camps; never talking about unpleasant memories with her parents; receiving compensation for their store from Germany in 1980 (after her father had died); and continuing fear of sirens.

2 videocassettes