Pearl P. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Pearl P., a twin, who was born in Chynadiyovo, Czechoslovakia in 1921, the youngest of ten children. She recounts most of her siblings had left home before she was born; attending public school and teacher's college; her mother's death in 1942; forced relocation to a brickyard in 1944; non-Jewish neighbors bringing them food; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; selection as twins; the trauma of learning about gassings and crematoria; working one week stacking corpses; living in a hospital; injections that made them ill, daily blood drawings, and other "experiments" by Josef Mengele and his staff; women prisoners killing their newborns to avoid being gassed; observing their brother in a work detail; receiving visits and extra food from him; liquidation of the Zigeunerlager (Gypsy Lager), it abutted their barrack; the death march in January 1945; arrival at Ravensbru?ck; a death march in April; abandonment by their guards; encountering U.S. troops; returning home; hearing from siblings in Mexico and the U.S.; finishing her education; teaching in a Czech town; reunions with several brothers; and emigration to the United States. Mrs. P. discusses numbing herself to corpses, but pervasive memories of them; Mengele's treatment of "his twins"; and her siblings' 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
- Mengele, Josef, -- 1911-1979.
- P., Pearl, -- 1921-
Corporate Bodies
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
- RavensbruĚck (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Postwar experiences.
- Mutual aid.
- Zigeunerlager (Gypsy Lager)
- Hospitals in concentration camps.
- Childbirth in concentration camps.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Death marches.
- Brothers and sisters.
- Human experimentation in medicine.
- Sisters.
- Women.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Twins.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
Places
- Chynadiyovo (Ukraine)
- Czechoslovakia.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat