Magda Z. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Magda Z., a twin, who was born in Budapest, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in 1915. She recounts living in Mukacheve; attending a Hungarian school; marriage in 1936; her son's birth; Hungarian occupation; anti-Jewish restrictions; her husband's draft into a Hungarian slave labor battalion; ghettoization; deportation with her family to Auschwitz/Birkenau; separation from her parents, siblings, and son (she never saw her parents or son again); her twin brother identifying her as a twin; placement with other female twins for "medical experiments" by Josef Mengele; being assigned to clean Mengele's quarters; a fellow prisoner preventing her from committing suicide; a brief encounter with her twin; a death march to Wrocław; train transport to Ravensbrück; transfer to Malchow; liberation by Soviet troops; returning home with three women from Mukacheve; learning her twin was alive in Romania; joining him; reunion with her husband; joining another brother in Budapest; another brother's return; recovery in a sanatorium; moving to Karlovy Vary; her son's birth; emigration to Israel in 1949; her daughter's birth; and the recent deaths of her husband and twin brother. Ms. Z. notes not sharing her experiences with her children.
Extent and Medium
2 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
- Mengele, Josef, -- 1911-1979.
- Z., Magda, -- 1915-
Corporate Bodies
- Malchow (Concentration camp)
- Ravensbrück (Concentration camp)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Brothers and sisters.
- Human experimentation in medicine.
- Children -- Death.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Forced labor.
- Concentration camp inmates -- Family relationships.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Twins.
- Mutual aid.
- Hungarian occupation.
- Death marches.
- Suicide.
- Survivor-child relations.
- Postwar experiences.
- Hospitals in concentration camps.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Jews -- Ukraine -- Mukacheve.
- Women.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
Places
- Munkács ghetto.
- Karlovy Vary (Czech Republic)
- Romania.
- Wrocław (Poland)
- Mukacheve (Ukraine)
- Budapest (Hungary)
- Austria.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat