Doris W. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Doris W., who was born in Teplice-S?anov, Czechoslovakia in 1925, the only child of an affluent family. She recounts her parents' vote for Sudetenland to join Germany in 1933; moving to Prague after German occupation in 1938; attending an English school; German invasion; deportation with her parents to Terezi?n; harsh conditions; starvation; her mother's hospitalization and surgery; her own work with children; her hospitalization with tuberculosis and anemia; meeting her future husband; transport with her parents to Auschwitz; learning about 'the chimneys'; and selection and transfer out of the family camp (she never saw her parents again). Mrs. W. remembers trying to hide pregnant women during appells; volunteering to go to Christianstadt due to the unbearable conditions in Auschwitz; slave labor cutting trees; a German guard's assistance; working in a chemical factory; the importance of her relationship with her friend; escape from a death march in 1945; capture and incarceration in Gleiwitz; liberation; returning to Prague; being hospitalized for one year with tuberculosis; a visit from her cousin who was in the United States Army; recuperation in Switzerland; returning to Prague; marriage; working in a bookstore; the birth of her children; and emigration to the United States after the Soviet intervention in 1968, with assistance from her cousin.
Extent and Medium
2 videocassettes (3/4" u-matic)
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
- W., Doris, -- 1925-
Corporate Bodies
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
- Theresienstadt (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Postwar experiences.
- Concentration camp inmates -- Family relationships.
- Child survivors.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Hospitals in concentration camps.
- Mutual aid.
- Mothers and daughters.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Friendship.
- Forced labor.
- Escapes.
- Fathers and daughters.
- Death marches.
- Germans -- Czechoslovakia -- Sudetenland -- History.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Women.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
Places
- Czechoslovakia -- History -- Intervention, 1968.
- Switzerland.
- Teplice (Czech Republic)
- Prague (Czech Republic)
- Christianstadt (Poland : Concentration camp)
- Gleiwitz (Poland : Concentration camp)
- Teplice-SĚanov (Czech Republic)
- Czechoslovakia.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat