Margarita F. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Margarita F., who was born in 1925, one of four children. She recalls her father was a miller in Minsk; his atheism (he was in the Communist Party); her mother's orthodoxy; being sickly until age four; attending a Russian school; her father's arrest during the 1937 "purge"; his release after six months; attending college; German invasion in June 1941; fleeing with her parents and two siblings; being wounded; receiving medical treatment in Chervyenʹ; reaching Mahili︠o︡ŭ (Mogilev); ghettoization; round-ups for mass killings, including her father; her mother ordering her to escape (she did not "look Jewish"); staying with non-Jewish families, posing as a non-Jew; round-up of her mother and siblings (she never saw them again); imprisonment in 1943; not admitting she was Jewish despite beatings; deportation with non-Jews for forced labor near Berlin, Germany; suspecting a few might have been Jews; assignments with her small group cleaning houses; strong prisoners helping the weaker ones; liberation by United States troops in 1945; transfer to Soviet troops; repatriation to Minsk, then Mahili︠o︡ŭ; reunion with her brother in 1947; his death; marriage; completing college; the births of two children; her husband's thirteen-year imprisonment on false charges; and his recent death. Ms. F. notes Soviets returning alive from Germany were treated as traitors; pervasive painful memories; continuing nightmares; and the pain of reliving her experiences during this recording.

4 videocassettes