Sonja M. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Sonja M., who was born in Berlin in 1925. She recalls antisemitic harassment in school; expulsion; attending a Jewish school; refusing a place on a kindertransport to remain with her parents; forced factory labor; her parents' deportation; hiding with her future husband (his job for the Jewish Kultusgemeinde provided protection and influence); deportation to Theresienstadt in June 1943 due to his influence; marriage by a rabbi; a Red Cross visit; deportation to Birkenau in October 1944; transfer ten days later to Freiberg; slave labor in an airplane factory; civilians throwing them food during transfer to Mauthausen; liberation by United States troops; recovering from a high fever; being smuggled to Linz by a friend; traveling to Frankfurt, and Bielefeld; reunion with her husband; living in Munich; one child's birth; and emigration to the United States in order not to raise their children in Germany. Mrs. M. discusses emotional numbness in the camps and at liberation; difficulty believing people were gassed and burned, even when she was in Auschwitz; continuing nightmares; and seldom discussing her experiences with her husband or children.
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
- M., Sonja, -- 1925-
Corporate Bodies
- Theresienstadt (Concentration camp)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
- International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
- Freiberg (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Mauthausen (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Women.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Husband and wife.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Child survivors.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Forced labor.
- Postwar effects.
- Survivor-child relations.
- Mutual aid.
- Hiding.
- Marriage in concentration camps.
- Postwar experiences.
Places
- Germany.
- Munich (Germany)
- Linz (Austria)
- Berlin (Germany)
- Bielefeld (Germany)
- Frankfurt am Main (Germany)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat