Ann F. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Ann F., who was born in Panevėžys, Lithuania in 1918, one of ten children. She recalls her family's orthodoxy; her father's charitable giving; antisemitic violence; two older brothers emigrating to South Africa; joining a married sister in Kaunas; Soviet occupation; marriage to a cellist in February 1940; her daughter's birth; German invasion; mass killings by Lithuanians, then Germans; ghettoization; an abortion in 1942 since Jewish women were forbidden to bear children; a non-Jewish neighbor hiding them during a round-up; starvation; deportations of many relatives; her husband's refusal to join the Jewish police; their round-up in October 1943; separation from her husband and daughter; deportation to Vaivara; a friendship with Tamara, with whom she stayed throughout the war; lesbian advances from a German prisoner; slave labor sorting clothing of murdered Jews; finding her daughter's coat; transfer to Goldfilz; encountering her husband there; his transfer when officials learned they were married; slave labor felling trees in Ereda; transfer to Stutthof, then Ochsenzoll; slave labor in a munitions factory; a German providing extra food that she and Tamara shared with sick prisoners; conducting a Passover seder; transfer to Bergen-Belsen; liberation in April 1945; learning her husband had not survived; Tamara giving her hope when she lost her will to live; working as a translator for Josef Rosensaft, the head of the displaced persons camp Jewish Committee, and for the British; living in Gifhorn; David Ben-Gurion's visit; moving to London; joining her brothers in Johannesburg; remarriage; emigration to Israel with her husband and stepdaughter; the births of two children; and volunteer work in Hadassah hospital and Yad Vashem. Ms. F. discusses guilt resulting from her harsh treatment of her daughter immediately prior to their separation; her brothers' and other Jews' lack of interest in her experiences when she felt compelled to relate them after the war; her children and husband finding them too painful to hear; her determination to convey her experiences to anyone who will listen; and continuing friendship with Tamara and other fellow-survivors.

5 videocassettes