He?le?ne A. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of He?le?ne A., who was born in approximately 1921. She recalls her family's orthodoxy; a brother and sister emigrating to France; living in Radom; German invasion of Radom; her father and brother being beaten for organizing Yom Kippur services in their home; ghettoization; sewing for a German woman to provide food for her parents; surgery in the ghetto hospital; round-ups; separation from her parents in a selection (she never saw them again); working in a factory; her fiance?'s arrest in May 1943 (she never saw him again); deportation to Pionki; slave labor in a munitions factory; public hangings; a Polish secretary providing her the means to communicate with her brother, which gave her hope; friends helping her fill her work quota; transfer to Auschwitz/Birkenau in July 1944; escaping to her friends from a group selected for death; transfer to Hindenburg; working as a seamstress for camp officials; a death march in January 1945 to Gleiwitz, then train transport to Dora; one of their group giving birth (they killed the baby to save the mother); transfer to Bergen-Belsen; starvation; contracting typhus; liberation by British troops; transfer to the displaced persons camp; emigration to Paris to join her brother and sister; marriage to a survivor in 1946; and the births of two sons. Mrs. A. discusses the importance of friends to her survival; losing her belief in God; continuing illnesses resulting from her experiences; and regret she did not convey her Jewish heritage to her children.

3 videocassettes