Rachel R. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Rachel R., who was born in Sosnowiec, Poland in 1923 to a family of eight children. She describes her orthodox and affluent home; German invasion; fleeing with her family to her grandfather's village; returning to Sosnowiec; anti-Jewish restrictions; forced labor in a workshop her father had established; the killings of her brother and grandmother; hiding with her sister and fiance during the ghetto's liquidation; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; separation from her fiance upon arrival; finding her mother (she was in an earlier transport); helping each other when they had typhus; separation from her mother; hearing of the revolt and destruction of a crematorium; the death march in January 1945; acts of cannibalism in Bergen-Belsen; and liberation by British troops in April. Mrs. R. recounts locating her father and younger sister with assistance from a Swiss nurse and marriage to her fiance in April 1946. She notes that her faith and belief in God sustained her in the camps.
Extent and Medium
3 videocassettes (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. This testimony may not be used for advertising, trade, or pictorial art.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- R., Rachel, -- 1923-
Corporate Bodies
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Bergen-Belsen (Concentration camp)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Jews -- Poland -- Sosnowiec (Województwo Śląskie)
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Women.
- Concentration camps -- Revolts.
- Death marches.
- Hiding.
- Mutual aid.
- Forced labor.
- Mothers and daughters.
- Cannibalism.
- Faith.
- Postwar experiences.
Places
- Sosnowiec ghetto.
- Sosnowiec (Województwo Śląskie, Poland)
- Poland.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat