Helena C. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Helena C., who was born in Piaseczno, Poland in 1926. She recalls attending public school; German invasion; forced transfer to the Warsaw ghetto; living with relatives due to a housing shortage; her father's difficulty finding work resulting in his volunteering for "settlement in the East;" her brother's transport soon after; and living in an orphanage with her younger sister. Mrs. C. comments on the "normality" of the dead and dying on the streets, typhus and starvation since, as a child, she knew nothing else. She describes hiding during round-ups; social and educational activities; working in a brush factory; hiding in a bunker in April 1943 during the uprising; contacts with the underground; discovery of their bunker; and deportation. She recounts escaping from the train; wandering in villages; working on a farm in Ke?pa from May 1943 onward as a non-Jew; and remaining until liberation in January 1945 despite being exposed as a Jew. Mrs. C. tells of returning and finding no Jews in Piaseczno; joining a cousin in Warsaw; living with other young people after her cousin's emigration; continuing her studies; and Polish antisemitism leading to emigration to the United States with her son in 1969.

2 videocassettes (3/4" u-matic)