Malka R. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Malka R., who was born in Brzeziny, Poland in 1919. She recalls her family's relative affluence, orthodoxy, and closeness; attending Jewish and public schools; loss of her father's business due to antisemitism in 1937-1938; one brother's military draft in August 1939 (he eventually traveled to Israel); German invasion in September; ghettoization; visiting her brother's family in ?owicz (she never saw them again); pervasive hunger; a public hanging of ten innocent people; the ghetto's liquidation; separation from her father (she never saw him afterward); transfer to ?o?dz? with her mother and sisters; factory labor; deportation to Auschwitz in August 1944; separation from her mother (she perished); remaining with her two sisters; help from a cousin; hiding with her sisters and another prisoner during a selection; a block leader who exposed them; train transfer to Halbstadt; forced factory labor; liberation by Soviet troops; traveling to ?o?dz?; marriage; her daughter's birth; and emigration to join her brother in Israel in 1950, and then to the United States in 1957. Mrs. R. discusses her family's postwar hardships; nightmares; sharing her story with her daughter; missing the happiness of her prewar life; and pervasive painful memories. She shows photographs.
Extent and Medium
2 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
- R., Malka, -- 1919-
Corporate Bodies
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Women.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Jews -- Poland -- Brzeziny.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Forced labor.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Sisters.
- Jews -- Poland -- Łódź.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Nightmares.
- Postwar experiences.
- Mutual aid.
- Postwar effects.
Places
- Brzeziny (Łódź, Poland)
- Poland.
- Łowicz (Poland)
- Israel.
- Halbstadt (Czech Republic : Concentration camp)
- Brzeziny ghetto.
- Łódź ghetto.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat