Betty R. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Betty R., who was born in Kielce, Poland. She recalls her family's active membership in revisionist Zionist organizations; an affluent childhood; German invasion when she was thirteen; her father and one brother fleeing to the Soviet zone (her father perished); public humiliation of Jews; forced labor; ghettoization; marriage; a mass killing of children; deportation with her husband to Pionki; slave labor in an ammunition factory; a public hanging; escaping with her husband; hiding in the woods; arrest; deportation to Oranienburg; her transfer to Ravensbru?ck; efforts to maintain morale; liberation by the Swedish Red Cross; transfer to Sweden; reunion with her brother; joining her husband illegally in Salzburg via Krako?w and emigration to the United States. Mrs R. discusses depression resulting from her experiences; her sense of anger and bitterness as a survivor; and her wish that people understand the impossible circumstances imposed upon Jews and that they did not "go to death like sheep."
Extent and Medium
1 videocassette
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., Betty.
Corporate Bodies
- Oranienburg (Concentration camp)
- Ravensbruc̈k (Concentration camp)
- Svenska rod̈a korset.
- Pionki (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Jews -- Poland -- Kielce.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Concentration camp inmates -- Escapes.
- Forced labor.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Husband and wife.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Women.
- Hiding.
- Child survivors.
- Mutual aid.
- Mass killings.
- Postwar experiences.
- Marriage in Jewish ghettos.
- Postwar effects.
Places
- Kielce (Poland)
- Poland.
- Kraków (Poland)
- Sweden.
- Kielce ghetto.
- Salzburg (Austria)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat