Helena B. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Helena B., who was born in Kos?ice, Czechoslovakia. She recalls a large, extended family; Hungarian occupation; anti-Jewish restrictions; her brother moving to Budapest; her father's exemption from a slave labor battalion due to a World War I injury; German invasion in March 1944; forced relocation to a brick factory; deportation with her parents and sisters to Auschwitz; separation from her parents and younger sister (they were gassed); beatings, a "terrible smell," and an orchestra; her sister's hospitalization; a doctor saving her life; separation from her sister when she was transferred to Stutthof; farm work in Beuthen; assisting a friend who was too weak to work; a beating which resulted in permanent scars and pain; transfer to Gronau; a child's birth (it was thrown on a pile of corpses); a death march in January 1945; escaping with a friend; a Polish woman sheltering them; a neighbor turning them in; the German officer releasing them; joining a group of Ukrainian forced laborers; escaping; hiding in sewers; traveling to the Soviet lines; briefly staying in Krako?w; traveling to Kos?ice; reunion with her brother and sister; emigration to Palestine, and then to the United States in 1958. Ms. B. notes seldom sharing her story, even with her children.

2 videocassettes