Evelina M. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Evelina M., who was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1930. She describes her affluent, assimilated family; German occupation; anti-Jewish laws; expulsion from school; deportation with her parents to Theresienstadt in July 1942 (her older sister and husband preceded them); living in the children's home; losing her optimism as conditions deteriorated; transport with her parents to Auschwitz/Birkenau; living in the family camp; Fredy Hirsch helping the children; her father's death in April; selection with her mother for a woman's barrack in July (those remaining were gassed); transfer to Stutthof; slave labor in Próchnik, then Guttau; her mother's death in November 1944; hiding during the camp evacuation; shooting of the remaining prisoners; liberation by Soviet troops in April; hospitalization in Deutsch Eylau, then Syzranʹ; a Jewish-Soviet doctor's offer of adoption; joining him and his wife in Leningrad; anti-Jewish quotas preventing her from attending Leningrad University; marriage in 1953; and the births of two children. Ms. M. discusses not being allowed to reveal her experiences to anyone; learning from the Red Cross that her sister and family (she had a baby in Theresienstadt) were killed in Auschwitz; homesickness; prohibitions from visiting Prague until relatives invited her in 1960; obtaining Czech citizenship; annual visits; and sharing her experiences with her children after her adoptive parents died. She shows photographs.

1 videocassette