Helen H. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Helen H., who was born in Polina, Czechoslovakia in 1924, the second of four children. She recalls cordial relations with non-Jews; Hungarian occupation; increasingly restrictive anti-Jewish regulations; ghettoization in another town in 1944; deportation to Auschwitz; separation from her mother, father, and brother (she never saw her parents again); slave labor moving rocks; learning of the mass killing and crematoria; wanting to die; a friend encouraging her to care for her younger sisters; assignment to the Canada Kommando; smuggling clothing to the barracks; punishment for efforts to observe Yom Kippur; separation from her sisters; transport to Weisswasser; French civilian workers passing them notes; sabotaging the work; threats that every tenth prisoner would be killed if sabotage continued; desertion by the guards; Czech civilians sheltering them; traveling home; reunion with her sisters en route, then with their brother; living in Budapest; her younger sister's emigration to the United States in 1947, then her own, with her sister and brother, in 1949; and marriage to a survivor she knew in Europe. Ms. H. discusses adapting to dehumanization, but not fear; remaining with friends; and pervasive memories of screams and burning human flesh.

2 videocassettes