Tamar B. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Tamar B., who was born in Dessau, Germany in 1923. She recounts attending school in Leipzig; her parents' divorce; her father's compulsory move to Vienna in 1936 because he was an Austrian citizen; moving to Berlin; attending a Jewish boarding school in Potsdam; Kristallnacht; her mother's arrest; living with a guardian; attending a Jewish school, then a Zionist camp in Havelberg; learning her father had arrived in Palestine; forced factory labor in Freisen; visiting an uncle in Wannsee (he gave her valuables); her younger sister joining her; their deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau in April 1943; beating her sister when she would not follow orders (this saved her); a Slovak woman befriending her; volunteering for the orchestra, a privileged position; arranging for her sister and friend to be in the orchestra; a German guard sending a letter to her non-Jewish aunt for her; hospitalization; avoiding selection with assistance from friends; train transfer to Bergen-Belsen; liberation by British troops; traveling with the Jewish Brigade to Fulda; contact with her father; traveling illegally with her sister to Antwerp; working for the Brigade; moving to the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp when they could not leave for Palestine; illegal emigration by ship to Palestine in 1946; capture by the British; incarceration in ĘťAtlit; release; reunion with her father; her sister's arrival; joining the Haganah; serving in the 1948 war; and her father's death in 1949. Ms. B. notes seldom discussing the Holocaust due to painful memories.
Extent and Medium
6 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.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- B., Tamar, -- 1923-
Corporate Bodies
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Bergen-Belsen (Concentration camp)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
- Haganah (Organization)
- DP-Camp Bergen-Belsen.
Subjects
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Mutual aid.
- Hospitals in concentration camps.
- Refugee camps.
- Friendship.
- Concentration camps -- Songs and music.
- Sisters.
- Crystal Night, 1938.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Child survivors.
- Israel-Arab War, 1948-1949.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Women.
- Forced labor.
- Zionists.
- Kristallnacht, 1938.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
Places
- Postwar experiences.
- Potsdam (Germany)
- Havelberg (Germany)
- Wannsee (Berlin, Germany)
- Freisen (Germany)
- Fulda (Germany)
- Antwerp (Belgium)
- Palestine -- Emigration and immigration.
- ĘťAtlit (Israel)
- Germany.
- Dessau (Dessau, Germany)
- Leipzig (Germany)
- Berlin (Germany)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat