Lilly S. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Lilly S., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1927. She recounts her family's assimilated life; arrest of her grandmother and parents after the Anschluss; their release weeks later; traveling to Aachen, then Brussels; living in a basement due to lack of resources; assistance from the Jewish community; her father's escape to England; German invasion; fleeing to Lille, then Dunkerque, futilely hoping to escape; return to Brussels; receiving a deportation notice; informing her mother they would hide; difficulty placing her four-year-old sister; she and her sister living with several families; hospitalization; a woman in the hospital supplying her with false papers; being caught in a round-up with her sister; their escape from a train; a farmer helping her place her sister in a convent; working in Rocherath; intense visits with her sister; friendship with Resistants; pleading with a German officer not to destroy a village; liberation by United States troops; learning her father had remarried, thinking them dead; illegal emigration to Palestine; marriage; and emigration to Germany. Mrs. S. discusses converting to Catholicism in Brussels and emotional support from attending mass; not sharing her story prior to attending a meeting of hidden children in New York; and establishing a local self-help group for hidden children.
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. This testimony or excerpts from it cannot be used in Europe. The donor's name can never be used in any publication.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- S., Lilly, -- 1927-
Subjects
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Hiding.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- False papers.
- Sisters.
- Child survivors.
- Refugees, Jewish.
- Escapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Belgium.
- Jews -- Migrations.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Convents.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Christian converts from Judaism.
- Women.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Postwar effects.
- Postwar experiences.
Places
- Austria -- History -- Anschluss, 1938.
- Palestine -- Emigration and immigration.
- Rocherath (Belgium)
- Dunkerque (France)
- Lille (France)
- Brussels (Belgium)
- Aachen (Germany)
- Vienna (Austria)
- Austria.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat