Gisela S. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Gisela S., who was born in Eschwege, Germany in 1931. She recounts her father's blindness due to a World War I injury; living in Abterode until 1937; moving to Frankfurt; her mother's death; not being harassed on Kristallnacht because they were the only Jews in their building; her father not being arrested because he was a decorated veteran; his remarriage in 1940; attending an illegal Jewish school; their deportation to Theresienstadt in fall 1942; her first encounter with corpses; transfer to a "youth home"; forced labor in a tailor shop; Danish prisoners sharing their food packages with her, and her sharing them with her parents; stealing potatoes while doing garden work; notice for deportation in 1943; her father receiving an exemption for them from the Jewish camp chairman, Jacob Edelstein; a large number of deportations before the Red Cross visit; a doctor smuggling her extra food when she was ill; cleaning out ashes from the crematorium in 1944; arrival of many prisoners in spring 1945; liberation by Soviet troops in May; returning to Frankfurt, then Eschwege; attending school; emigration to the United States in April 1946; and her parents joining her a year later.

2 videocassettes