Gerda H. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Gerda H., who was born in Ansbach, Germany in 1922. She recounts her father was a kosher butcher; attending lyceum after documenting her father's World War I service; expulsion due to additional anti-Jewish laws; attending a Jewish school in Berlin; moving with her family to Munich after Kristallnacht; her father's emigration to England; being unable to join him once war began; her sister being sent to nursing school in Frankfurt and she in Berlin; learning her mother had been deported (she never saw her again); occasionally seeing her sister (she was working in a Berlin factory); their separate deportations (she never saw her again); working as a nurse in Theresienstadt; friendship with another nurse; volunteering with her friend for a transport to Switzerland despite their doubts about its destination; arrival in Switzerland; hearing from her father; learning about gassings and death camps in 1946; realizing her mother's and sister's fates; and emigration to the United States. Ms. H. discusses the importance of luck to her survival; feeling redeemed by having children and grandchildren; remaining Jewish despite questioning why God did not save the Jews; and guilt arising from her survival. She shows camp artifacts.
Extent and Medium
2 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
- H., Gerda, -- 1922-
Corporate Bodies
- Theresienstadt (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Friendship.
- Faith.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Forced labor.
- Postwar effects.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Kristallnacht, 1938.
- Postwar experiences.
- Women.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Crystal Night, 1938.
Places
- Berlin (Germany)
- Munich (Germany)
- Germany.
- Ansbach (Mittelfranken, Germany)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat