Magdalena N. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Magdalena N., who was born in Ružomberok, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1920, one of two sisters. She recalls cordial relations with non-Jews; her strong Slovak identity; teaching Jewish students in L̕ubochňa; anti-Jewish restrictions, including the humiliation of having to wear the star; moving to Bratislava with her family; her father hiding them, then arranging for her and her sister to be smuggled to Hungary; interdiction in Senec; return to Bratislava; two strangers paying for their release; her sister's marriage to a man legally exempted from deportation, thus obtaining her exemption; her father obtaining false papers for her; working in Prešov for four months; marriage to a man with an exemption; his assignment to a military state farm in Zámutov, where they lived for fifteen months; learning her parents were hidden by non-Jews; incarceration by the Gestapo in Prešov for two weeks; deportation with her husband to Auschwitz, then transfer to Ravensbrück two days later; separation from her husband when she volunteered to work; transfer to Dortmund, Dusseldorf, then Bochum; slave labor in aircraft factories; being buried during an Allied bombing; receiving extra food from a German guard; transfer to Bergen-Belsen; observing huge piles of corpses and cannibalism; liberation by British troops April 15, 1945; working with child survivors; repatriation to Bratislava; reunion with her husband, parents, sister, and sister's husband; learning most of their extended family had been killed; attending university; the births of two children; and sharing her experiences with them. Ms. N. discusses characteristics of national groups in camp; recently returning to the camps; and not hating, despite her inability to forgive or forget.

1 videocassette