Fela M. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Fela M., who was born in a small town in Poland in 1917, one of eight children. She recalls attending school in ?o?dz?; marriage in 1938; German invasion; her family's deportation to Warsaw; ghettoization in ?o?dz? in February 1940; her daughter's birth in April; her husband's death in 1941; her father-in-law's death in 1942; her daughter's deportation in September 1942; learning of her father's death in 1943; forced labor; recovering from typhus with help from two cousins; deportation to Auschwitz in September 1944; transfer two days later to a labor camp, then in January to Bergen-Belsen; infestation with lice and "mountains" of corpses; a severe beating for trying to help male prisoners; liberation by British troops in April 1945; a three-year hospitalization including a sanitarium in Milan; marriage in 1950; the births of two children; and emigration to the United States. Mrs. M. discusses continuing pain due to the loss of her entire family; her belief that "something died" in her; painful aspects of child rearing due to her first daughter's death; and her children's interest in her experiences. 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
- M., Fela, -- 1917-
Corporate Bodies
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Bergen-Belsen (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Women.
- Video tapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Jews -- Poland -- Łódź.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Forced labor.
- Children -- Death.
- Mutual aid.
- Husband -- Death.
- Survivor-child relations.
- Postwar experiences.
- Postwar effects.
- Holocaust survivors.
Places
- Milan (Italy)
- Łódź ghetto.
- Łódź (Poland)
- Poland.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat