Salomea G. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Salomea G., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1933, the youngest of three sisters. She recalls attending a Jewish kindergarten; being terrified in the streets; her parents' separation in 1936; her father's institutionalization for mental illness; her mother seeking sponsorship for emigration from her brother in Australia; her oldest sister's emigration in 1938; her father's incarceration in Buchenwald after release from the asylum; her mother obtaining his release providing he left for Shanghai; his four-week stay with them during which she felt safe and surrounded by love; emigration to Melbourne; involvement in communist youth groups; learning of the camps in 1945 and that most of their European family had been killed; trying to return to communist Germany; entering in 1954 after spying for the GDR; gradual disillusionment and recognition of antisemitism; and expulsion from the Communist Party in 1968. Ms. G. discusses continuing fears resulting from her childhood; overcoming them after writing a book; Jewish organizational life in Germany; and continuing hostility to her immediate family. She shows photographs.

4 videocassettes