Klara M. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Klara M., who was born in Čaňa, Czechoslovakia in 1924, one of six children. She recalls cordial relations with non-Jews; Hungarian occupation; anti-Jewish restrictions; learning to be a seamstress in Košice when she was sixteen; being rounded-up with her family in Čaňa in spring 1944; ghettoization; non-Jewish neighbors bringing them food; declining to hide with a non-Jew, not wanting to leave her family; incarceration in the Košice brickyard; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; separation from her family; transfer to Bergen-Belsen in fall 1944, then to Braunschwieg two months later; slave labor clearing bombing rubble; transfer to a munitions factory, then Beendorf and Eidelstedt; being loaded onto freight cars in May 1945; liberation by the Swedish Red Cross; transport to Denmark, then Malmö and Landskrona, Sweden; repatriation in October; learning one brother had survived; and marriage to a survivor. Mrs. M. discusses the importance of being with cousins and friends to her survival; details of camp life; pervasive memories; observing cannibalism; difficulty believing she survived such circumstances; not sharing her experiences with her children, but often talking with her husband about those times; and the kindness of the Swedes and Danes.

2 videocassettes