Rose J. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Rose J., who was born in Vilna, Poland in 1925. She recalls her family of nine children (she is the sole survivor); Vilna's cultural and religious life; her father's optimism resulting in unwillingness to flee to the Soviet Union; forced labor, hunger, smuggling, cultural events, and round-ups in the ghetto; and one sister's refusal to abandon her son to save herself. Mrs. J. tells of deportation to Latvia; forced labor and sabotaging products in Strazdenhof; smuggling food to children; prisoners killing an informant; transfer to Stutthof, then Dresden; work in an ammunition factory; Allied bombings; a dream about her mother; the death march to Czechoslovakia; and escape with others. She describes posing as a Lithuanian; liberation by American troops; taking revenge; organizing entertainment in displaced persons camps in Germany; marriage to a survivor in 1946; her son's birth in 1947; and emigration to the United States in 1950. Other topics include the lost potential of those killed (e.g. her nephew, a violinist for the Vilna Philharmonic); survival for even one day as a form of resistance; tremendous love for her children; sadness at raising them with no extended family; and attending the 1981 Gathering in Jerusalem.

2 videocassettes