Irene S. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Irene S., who was born in 1914 in Ulm, Germany. She recalls an affluent childhood; being forced to leave Germany when Hitler came to power because her father was a Czech citizen; emigration to Vienna, then Czechoslovakia; work in her uncle's summer resort for five years; deportation to a Polish work camp in 1939; and escape with a Polish and a Czech prisoner. Mrs. S. relates finding her parents in Prague; obtaining false papers; learning her brothers had emigrated to Palestine; meeting a former neighbor who exposed her; incarceration in Terezi?n; caring for a German officer's child; escape to Prague with the aid of the German officer for her promise to help him after the war; reunion with her parents; short incarcerations in several work camps; joining the underground; and her inability to save the German who had saved her (he was shot during the German retreat). She describes her marriage; emigration to the United States in 1948; her brothers' experiences; relating her experiences to her children in 1978 and 1979 through a writing class; her husband's reluctance to talk about the war; and her dislike of books about the Holocaust by those who did not experience it.
Extent and Medium
1 videocassette (3/4" u-matic)
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
- S., Irene, -- 1914-
Corporate Bodies
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Theresienstadt (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Hiding.
- Escapes.
- Mutual aid.
- False papers.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Women.
- Forced labor.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Survivor-child relations.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Postwar experiences.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
Places
- Ulm (Germany)
- Germany.
- Vienna (Austria)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- ftamc