Erna R. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Erna R., who was born in Z?ywiec, Poland in 1922. She recalls being one of two Jewish families; attending high school in Krako?w; anti-Semitic incidents; German invasion; forced labor; ghettoization; hunger, deportations, and mass killings; the demoralizing effect of family separations; liquidation of the ghetto in 1943; her family's transfer to P?aszo?w; working in the Madritsch factory; truck transport of all children out of P?aszo?w, including her eleven year old brother (they were all killed); her father's and mother's deportations; frequent hangings and shootings; and transport to Auschwitz in September 1944. Mrs. R. describes the dehumanizing reception procedures; strategies for remaining with her sisters; transfer to Gundelsdorf in January 1945; help from an SS guard; transfer to Zwodau; resisting unwanted homosexual advances; a death march; escaping with help from a local woman; and liberation by American troops, whose chaplain, Rabbi Eugene Lipman, became a friend. She recounts working as an interpreter for the United Nations; marrying a man whose mother she knew in P?aszo?w; and writing a book about her experience. She reflects on her belief in the importance of prayer and miracles and the sisters staying together, and she reads her poem about survival.

2 videocassettes