Hedva Z. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Hedva Z., who was born in Maria?nske? La?zne?, Czechoslovakia. She recounts living in Jas?o, then Przemys?l; attending university in L?viv; antisemitic harassment; working as a nurse in Kolomyi?a?; marriage in December 1939; living in Kosiv; Soviet occupation; confiscation of her husband's businesses; moving to Kolomyi?a?; German invasion; mass killings; sheltering orphaned children; ghettoization; supervising an orphanage; a former maid smuggling food to them; hiding the children during round-ups; assistance from the head of the Judenrat, Mordecai Horowitz; her parents' deportation (she never saw them again); most of the children in the orphanage being killed; obtaining false papers with assistance from her husband's German supervisor; escaping with his help; hiding in Osmolda; interdiction at the Hungarian border; imprisonment in Ivano-Frankivs?k; posing as non-Jews; transfer with her husband to a camp in L?viv, then to Majdanek in March 1943; assignment to a privileged position as a translator; continuing to pose as a non-Jew; helping others through her position, including altering selection lists; being shot when she was feeding a Jewish child (the child and his mother were killed in front of her); hospitalization; performances by a friend who was a professional singer; release with assistance from a Polish organization, the Red Cross, and a Wehrmacht officer; living in L?viv; reunion with her husband after his release; moving to Lublin; working with her husband (they posed as cousins); assisting the underground; sending notes and food to friends in Majdanek with assistance from a German officer; liberation by Soviet troops; working as a journalist; testifying at trials of Majdanek officials; reunion with an uncle; moving to ?o?dz?; her daughter's birth; moving to Jelenia Go?ra; her son's birth; and emigration with her family to Israel via Italy in 1950. Ms. Z. notes testifying against Hermine Braunsteiner and Hildegard Lachert, Majdanek officials, at trials in Du?sseldorf.

11 videocassettes