Rena S. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Rena S., who was born in Zdun?ska Wola, Poland in 1929. She recalls a comfortable life; visiting grandparents in Kalisz and ?o?dz?; German invasion in September 1939; walking to ?o?dz?; returning home shortly thereafter; confiscation of their home; living with grandparents in Kalisz; confiscation of their home; returning to her parents; ghettoization; her younger sister's selection in 1942 (she never saw her again); rail transport to the ?o?dz? ghetto; living with relatives; forced factory labor; hospitalization for typhus; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau in 1944; separation from her father (she never saw him again); transfer with her mother to Hamburg; slave labor demolishing buildings; transfer to Poppenbu?ttel; doing roadwork; separation from her mother; transfer to Bergen-Belsen; finding her mother; liberation by British troops; hospitalization; her mother's death; marking her grave; living in the displaced persons camp; returning to ?o?dz? with an aunt, then back to Germany; living in Munich; assistance from the Joint; living in Berck-Plage, Paris, a children's home in Versailles, and with relatives in Paris; emigration to London in 1949; marriage; and raising two children. Ms. S. discusses numbness in the camps; losing her belief in God; slowly recovering her faith; and never sharing her story before.
Extent and Medium
1 videocassette
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. This testimony cannot be used for commercial purposes, nor can it be edited.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- S., Rena, -- 1929-
Corporate Bodies
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
- Bergen-Belsen (Concentration camp)
- American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
- DP-Camp Bergen-Belsen.
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Jews -- Poland -- Łódź.
- Jews -- Poland -- Zduńska Wola.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- Jewish ghettos.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Women.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Postwar effects.
- Postwar experiences.
- Orphanages -- France.
- Faith.
- Child survivors.
- Hospitals in Jewish ghettos.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Forced labor.
- Refugee camps.
- Mothers and daughters.
Places
- Łódź ghetto.
- Hamburg (Germany : Concentration camp)
- Poppenbüttel-Sasel (Germany : Concentration camp)
- Łódź (Poland)
- Zduńska Wola (Poland)
- Poland.
- Zduńska Wola ghetto.
- Berck-Plage (France)
- Paris (France)
- Kalisz (Poland)
- Munich (Germany)
- Versailles (France)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat