Golda L. Holocaust testimony

Identifier
HVT 3396
Language of Description
English
Level of Description
Collection
Source
EHRI Partner

Abstract

Videotape testimony of Golda L., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1935. She recounts her grandparents were orthodox, but her parents being atheists; not understanding she was a Jew; her father taking her to Frankfurt in 1939; travelling to Freiburg, then Paris where she lived with her aunt and her aunt's boyfriend (they married later); terrible loneliness and longing for her parents; fleeing south with her aunt and her boyfriend; two weeks in Gurs; living on a farm in Montauban; attending school; hiding in a convent one night, then entering Switzerland illegally in 1943 with the help of a Jewish underground organization; living in a vicarage in Winterthur; attending school; mistreatment by her foster family; learning her mother had died and her father was in a concentration camp; her father locating her through the Red Cross and retrieving her in 1947; his remarriage in 1950; living on her own from 1955; and the birth of a half-sibling. Ms. L. discusses always being afraid as a child and many adult fears resulting from this; her father's silence about the war years; hearing about Auschwitz from him at her urging years later; in 1980, visiting the uncle (her aunt's boyfriend) in Berlin with whom she lived in France and going to her mother's grave with him; her father's death by drowning in Israel in 1981; visiting Poland in 1988 to meet two men who were in a camp with her father (one had a photo of her that had sustained her father during the war); and visiting Auschwitz and the farmer who hid her in Montauban. She shows photographs.

Extent and Medium

3 videocassettes

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. Video or audio from this testimony cannot be used in Europe prior to 2015. Personal names must be altered in any transcripts of this testimony.

Rules and Conventions

Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Process Info

  • compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies

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This description is derived directly from structured data provided to EHRI by a partner institution. This collection holding institution considers this description as an accurate reflection of the archival holdings to which it refers at the moment of data transfer.