Bella M. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Bella M., who was born in Boryslav, Poland in 1932. She recalls her family's affluence; brief German invasion, then Soviet occupation in 1939; German invasion in 1941; anti-Jewish restrictions; hiding with non-Jewish neighbors, in a bunker they built, then with various non-Jews during round-ups; denunciation by the person hiding them when they ran out of money; imprisonment; transfer to a labor camp; escaping; hiding in a forest; capture; return to the labor camp; public execution of escapees; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; gender separation (she never saw her brother or father again); hospitalization; her mother's visits; release; useless slave labor; a baby's birth (the baby was disposed of in the latrine); slave labor in the weaving area; her mother's hospitalization; faking illness to stay with her; remaining when everyone left in January 1945; liberation by Soviet troops; transfer to Katowice; living in a convent, a Jewish center, and a children's home in Chorzo?w; threatened violence; moving to Bytom, then to Germany; living in Bad Reichenhall and Aschau displaced persons camp; and emigration to the United States in 1949. Ms. M. discusses help from Americans, HIAS, UNRRA, and the Joint; marriage in 1955; her three children; focusing on the future; and her mother's continuing guilt. She shows photographs.

2 videocassettes