Rahela R. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Rahela R., who was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1926. She recalls her mother's death in 1934; cordial relations with non-Jews; participating in the Zionist group Akiba; learning Eastern Orthodoxy ritual and prayer in school, which later helped her pose as a non-Jew; German invasion; visiting her brother and two uncles at Topovske Šupe; her brother's warning that they should hide; watching her brother being taken away; his murder, with three hundred other Jews, in reprisal for a German who was killed; hiding in Arandelovac; obtaining false papers; receiving travel documents from her father's friend, an army general; moving to Vrnjačka Banja; living with Serbian families, one of which was in the Serbian collaborationist regime; liberation; reunion with her other brother; learning her father had been shot; returning to Belgrade; difficulties reclaiming family property; and disclosing her Jewish identity to the collaborationist family with whom she had lived. Ms. R. discusses testifying on behalf of a Chetnik who saved her; losing her faith in God when her brother was killed; and only five of her family of sixty-four surviving. She shows photographs.
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.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- R., Rahela, -- 1926-
Subjects
- Zionist organizations.
- Hiding.
- Faith.
- Child survivors.
- Mass killings.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Postwar effects.
- False papers.
- Women.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Brothers and sisters.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Postwar experiences.
Places
- Belgrade (Serbia)
- Yugoslavia.
- Topovske Šupe (Serbia : Concentration camp)
- Vrnjačka Banja (Serbia)
- Aranđelovac (Serbia)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat