Bronis?awa W. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Bronis?awa W., who was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1919. Ms. W. recalls her family's assimilated lifestyle; her father's death and mother's remarriage; beatings by her alcoholic stepfather; transferring to a Jewish school to avoid antisemitic harassment; helping support the family after her mother's divorce; ghettoization with her mother and sister in 1940 (her brother escaped to the Soviet zone and survived); selling their store to Poles who refused to pay them; working in the children's hospital which provided access to food, medicine and passes to leave the ghetto; extraordinary efforts of the hospital's staff, director (Dr. Szwajgier), and ethnic German supervisor to care for the children; working as a courier for underground movements; rescuing her sister from deportation in July 1942 (she was unable to rescue her mother); placing her sister in an apartment on the Aryan side; her sister's arrest (she never saw her again); moving to the Aryan side; living with Dr. Szwajgier; working for the Bund obtaining hiding places and false papers; constant danger; and meeting her future husband. She notes some Poles provided assistance for religious reasons and some for money.

3 videocassettes