Clara M. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Clara M., who was born in Rzeszów, Poland (then Russia) in 1915, one of four children. She recalls her father's work as a Hebrew educator and his strong Zionist commitment; attending Polish school; antisemitic harassment; her leadership role in Hashomer Hatzair; attending university in Warsaw; interning at Janusz Korczak's orphanage; her older sister's emigration to Palestine in 1938; directing a Zionist summer camp in Zakopane in 1939; German invasion; walking to Rzeszów via Kraków; futile attempts to escape to the Soviet zone; forced labor with her sister; escaping to Lʹviv; communicating with her family via the Red Cross; traveling to Kaunus and Vilna; sending food to her parents; returning to Lʹviv; marriage; anti-Jewish violence, including public hangings; learning of her father's death; German invasion in June 1941; ghettoization; forced labor with her husband; her mother-in-law's deportation; hiding during round-ups; escaping to the "Aryan" sector; moving to Warsaw using false papers; bringing her sister and mother there with assistance from a non-Jew; assisting the ghetto underground; visiting the ghetto once; observing the uprising; her sister's move to a farm; the Polish uprising; fleeing to Konstancin-Jeziorna; liberation by Soviet troops; traveling to Łódź, Rzeszów, Bratislava, Hungary, and Bucharest; and preparing survivors for emigration to Palestine as part of a Zionist group that included Yitzhak Zuckerman and Abba Kovner. Ms. M. discusses Korczak's child development theories and practices; her brother's arrest and execution; transferring her father's remains to Israel; attending a reunion of Korczak's students in Poland; and negative stereotypes of survivors in Israel resulting in not sharing her story, although she did with her children.

8 videocassettes