Liselotte C. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Liselotte C., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1928 to a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother. She recalls her parents' secularism; attending a German school for one year; transfer to a Jewish school due to the Nuremberg laws; her father's decision not to emigrate, even after Kristallnacht, and loss of his job as a journalist; her school closing in 1942; she and her father deciding not to wear the star, fearing violent harassment more than discovery; working as a gardener in the Jewish cemetery; assisting in hiding Torah scrolls; friendship with a fellow-worker (her future husband); her father's arrest; joining demonstrations with her mother at Rosenstrasse; his release; being assigned to clear bombing rubble; exemption from work in February 1945 after contracting rheumatism; liberation by Soviet troops; their janitor vouching her father was Jewish to avoid being shot by Soviets; her parents' divorce; an antisemitic incident; emigrating to Israel with her mother and future husband; marriage; living on a kibbutz and in several cities; divorce and remarriage; her mother's death in 1959; returning alone to Berlin in 1973; and marriage to a non-Jew. Ms. C. discusses her mother's refusal to divorce her father during the Nazi period despite pressure to do so; her sense of inferiority resulting from her experiences; and feeling at home in Germany, not in Israel. She shows photographs.

3 videocassettes