Vera T. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Vera T., who was born in Uz︠h︡horod, Czechoslovakia (presently Ukraine), an only child. She recounts her family moving to Prague the following year; her family's perfume and cosmetics business; their relative affluence; a sheltered childhood; attending a Czech school; transferring to a French school due to antisemitic harassment; German occupation in spring 1939; anti-Jewish restrictions, including expulsion from school; studying English; her father obtaining Hungarian passports for them based on his service in the Austro-Hungarian army in World War I; deportations in 1942; leaving with her parents for Budapest in August, thinking it safer; obtaining a job as a French and English tutor, which supported her family; German occupation in March 1944; obtaining false passports; living in a safe house; Germans catching her and her mother when they left the safe house; Raoul Wallenberg negotiating their release; returning to the safe house; liberation by Soviet troops; obtaining a job with the Joint, assisting survivors returning from camps; shock at hearing about Auschwitz; her mother returning to Prague; her father's death; joining her mother in Prague; government confiscation of their apartment and factory; working with Beriḥah, organizing illegal emigration to Palestine; meeting her husband, an Auschwitz survivor; and their emigration to Israel in March 1949. Ms. T. discusses a visit to Prague two year ago during which she realized she had childhood memories, but no roots there.

3 videocassettes