Frieda K. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Frieda K., who was born in Thessalonikē, Greece in 1921, one of five children. She recounts her family's affluence; cordial relations with non-Jews; attending an Alliance Israélite Universelle school; her family's friendship with Zvi Koretz, the chief rabbi; one sister's emigration to Israel in 1935; Italian occupation; her brother's military draft; German invasion; anti-Jewish restrictions; assistance from a German soldier assigned to live with them; her brother's escape (she never saw him again); ghettoization; round-up to the Baron de Hirsch area; separation from another brother; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau in April 1943; separation from her parents; a privileged position as a translator in Canada Kommando; smuggling food and shoes to her sister in another block; assistance from Mala Zimetbaum when she was ill; hospitalization; depression upon learning her sister had been killed; a German prisoner protecting her from selection; kapos giving her extra food; the pervasive odor of burning flesh; Mala Zimetbaum's suicide before she was to be publicly hanged (she had escaped); fasting on Yom Kippur; a death march to Gliwice in January 1945; train transfer to Ravensbrück, then Neustadt-Glewe; trading jewelry from the Canada Kommando for food; Allied bombings; liberation by United States troops; arrival of Soviet soldiers; traveling to Nienburg, Leese, and Kevelaer displaced persons camp; transfer to Brussels; assistance from former neighbors and relatives in Antwerp; returning home via Athens; contact with her siblings in Israel; assistance from the Joint; her brother-in-law visiting from Israel; illegal emigration by ship to Palestine; interdiction by the British; brief incarceration; her relatives providing care and nurturing; marriage; and the births of two daughters. Ms. K. discusses considering suicide in Birkenau; status and relations among prisoner groups; and continuing nightmares and anxiety resulting from her experiences. Ms. K. shows photographs and sings songs.
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
- Koretz, Zvi.
- K., Frieda, -- 1921-
- Zimetbaum, Mala, -- 1918-1944.
Corporate Bodies
- Alliance israélite universelle.
- Ravensbrück (Concentration camp)
- Neustadt-Glewe (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
- American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
Subjects
- Forced labor.
- Sisters.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Concentration camps -- Sociological aspects.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Jews -- Greece -- Thessalonikē.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Women.
- Hospitals in concentration camps.
- Mutual aid.
- Postwar effects.
- Postwar experiences.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Songs and music.
- Refugee camps.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Nightmares.
- Concentration camp inmates -- Religious life.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Death marches.
- Concentration camp inmates -- Family relationships.
Places
- Greece.
- Kevelaer (Germany : Refugee camp)
- Palestine -- Emigration and immigration.
- Salonika ghetto.
- Gliwice (Poland)
- Lüneburg (Germany)
- Thessalonikē (Greece)
- Athens (Greece)
- Brussels (Belgium)
- Antwerp (Belgium)
- Nienburg (Lower Saxony, Germany)
- Leese (Lemgo, Germany)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat