Bella H. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Bella H., who was born in Bilky, Czechoslovakia (presently Ukraine) in 1924, one of seven children. She recounts a happy childhood despite her family's poverty; a large, extended family; attending Czech school; Hungarian occupation; her brother's draft into a Hungarian slave labor battalion; deportation to the Berehovo ghetto, then to Auschwitz about five weeks later; remaining with her sister (she never saw her mother or younger brothers again); a brief encounter with her father, when she was beaten for running to him (she never saw him again); transfer to Boizenburg; slave labor in an airplane factory; Allied bombings; sharing food with her sister and a cousin; a fellow prisoner giving birth (the baby was taken away); a death march; liberation by British troops in Ludwigslust; traveling to Teplice, then Budapest; finding an uncle and cousin; reunion with her brother in Prague; searching for another brother in Theresienstadt; moving to Fürth displaced persons camp; emigration with her brother and sister in 1947 to join relatives in the United States; marriage; and the births of two children. Ms. H. discusses pervasive, painful memories.
Extent and Medium
1 videocassette
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. This testimony can only be used for educational and research purposes.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- H., Bella, -- 1924-
Corporate Bodies
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Forced labor.
- Refugee camps.
- Hungarian occupation.
- Mutual aid.
- Sisters.
- Fathers and daughters.
- Concentration camp inmates -- Family relationships.
- Death marches.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Jews -- Ukraine -- Berehove.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Women.
- Postwar effects.
- Postwar experiences.
- Childbirth in concentration camps.
Places
- Fürth (Germany : Refugee camp)
- Boizenburg (Germany : Concentration camp)
- Budapest (Hungary)
- Prague (Czech Republic)
- Berehovo ghetto.
- Terezín (Severočeský kraj, Czech Republic)
- Bilky (Zakarpatsʹka oblastʹ, Ukraine)
- Czechoslovakia.
- Teplice (Czech Republic)
- Ludwigslust (Germany : Landkreis)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat