Sonja M. Holocaust testimony

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.

2 videocassettes