Sara W. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Sara W., who was born in Jaworzno, Poland in 1911, one of nine children. She describes her mother's death in 1935; antisemitic boycotts; her father's emigration to Palestine; marriage in Krako?w in January 1939; German occupation; one brother's murder in a mass shooting; ghettoization; her husband's and son's disappearance in October 1942 (she never saw them again); working in the Wieliczka salt mine; her brother smuggling her to Chrzano?w; fleeing to Sosnowiec during Chrzano?w's liquidation; hiding in a bunker her brother built with assistance from a Polish woman; obtaining false papers; visiting her family in the ghetto; smuggling two nieces out of the ghetto; the younger niece's discovery; moving to Germany with assistance from the underground, posing as Polish slave laborers; working on a farm, then a convent; hiding her nephew and two friends (they had escaped); she and her niece being interrogated by German police; liberation by Soviet troops; returning to Jaworzno; fleeing to Frankfurt; marriage in Zeilsheim displaced persons camp; the birth of her two children; and emigrating in 1951 to the United States. Mrs. W. discusses the loss of all her siblings, and memorializing their names on her father's and husband's tombstones in Jerusalem. She shows photographs and documents.
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. This testimony or excerpts from it, can be used only for educational purposes. It cannot be used for commerial purposes or in any context which includes fiction or reenactment.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- W., Sara, -- 1911-
Corporate Bodies
- Zeilsheim (Displaced persons camp)
Subjects
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Rescuers.
- Bunkers.
- Hiding.
- Mass killings.
- Postwar experiences.
- Mutual aid.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Video tapes.
- Women.
- Jews -- Poland -- Kraków.
- Jews -- Poland -- Sosnowiec (Województwo Śląskie)
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Convents -- Germany.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Jews -- Rescue.
- Forced labor.
- Children -- Death.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- False papers.
- Refugee camps.
- Husband -- Death.
- Holocaust survivors.
Places
- Chrzanów (Poland)
- Kraków (Poland)
- Jaworzno (Kraków, Poland)
- Poland.
- Kraków ghetto.
- Frankfurt am Main (Germany)
- Sosnowiec (Województwo Śląskie, Poland)
- Wieliczka Salt Mine (Poland)
- Sosnowiec ghetto.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat