Sara L. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Sara L., who was born in Sokole, Poland in 1922. She recalls a happy childhood; a very orthodox home; moving to Bia?ystok; increasing antisemitism in 1937; brief German occupation in 1939; Soviet occupation; German invasion; one brother fleeing to the Soviet Union; another brother's round-up (she never saw him again); ghettoization; forced factory labor; hiding during round-ups; her mother's deportation (she never saw her again); the ghetto's liquidation; a selection with her brother and father; being chosen for labor (she never saw her father or brother again); train transport to Majdanek; suicides of several women en route; transfer to Bliz?yn; forced labor as a seamstress; contracting typhus; receiving food from a male prisoner; transfer to Auschwitz, then Kratzau; slave labor in a munitions factory; liberation by Soviet troops in May 1945; returning to Bia?ystok; antisemitic violence; marriage; her son's birth; illegally entering Germany; her second son's birth in Munich; learning her brother had survived in the Soviet Union; and emigrating to the United States. Mrs. L. discusses the importance to her survival of taking initiative (volunteering for work, stealing food, etc.), maintaining hope, and mutual support among prisoners.
Extent and Medium
3 videocassettes
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
- L., Sara, -- 1922-
Corporate Bodies
- Majdanek (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Kratzau I (Concentration camp)
- Bliżyn (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Holocaust survivors.
- Women.
- Video tapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Jews -- Poland -- BiaŁystok.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Forced labor.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Friendship.
- Mutual aid.
- Soviet occupation.
- Antisemitism -- Postwar.
- Postwar experiences.
Places
- Sokole (Poland)
- Poland.
- Munich (Germany)
- Białystok (Poland)
- Białystok ghetto.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat