Lilly L. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Lilly L., a Romani, who was raised in Berlin in a family of fifteen children. She recalls her father working in the post office and her mother in a store; her father's German military service; one brother working as a policeman; Nazi anti-Romani restrictions, including her expulsion from school; her sister's deportation to Ravensbru?ck; deportation with her remaining family to Auschwitz in 1943 following an examination by "race scientists"; her father's murder during the transport; selection of her mother and eight siblings for death upon arrival; selections in the Zigeunerlager (Gypsy Lager); public executions of captured escapees; transfer to Ravensbru?ck; beatings and slave labor; transfer to Schlieben; slave labor in a munitions factory; and liberation by United States troops. Mrs. L. describes searching for relatives; reunion with her surviving siblings; marriage to another survivor; reluctance to share her experiences with her children because it is too painful for her; continuing hostility to Romanies in Germany; her own German identity; and her belief that the Romani lifestyle must change because of Neo-Nazism. She notes she cannot discuss details of the camps because it is too painful.
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.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- L., Lilly.
Corporate Bodies
- Schlieben (Concentration camp)
- RavensbruĚck (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Survivor-child relations.
- Romanies -- Germany -- History -- 20th century.
- Postwar experiences.
- Postwar effects.
- Concentration camp inmates.
- Forced labor.
- Romanies -- Nazi persecution -- Germany.
- Video tapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Women.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Romani.
Places
- Berlin (Germany)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat