Lydia P. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Lydia P., who was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1933, an only child. She recalls her parents working in their antique shop; being cared for by a nanny who taught her English; speaking German with her parents; her family's orthodoxy; visits to her maternal grandparents in Bánovce nad Bebravou for Jewish holidays; harassment after the formation of the Slovak state; living with her grandparents and attending a Jewish school (it was safer there); returning to her parents; confiscation of their store; hiding with her parents in 1942; their departure (they had been betrayed and were deported and killed); living with her aunt's husband's non-Jewish family; crying constantly due to her feelings of being abandoned; her grandfather bringing her to her former nanny's family in Kežmarok; her caregiver purchasing Swiss citizenship with Lydia P.'s father's money; attending a Catholic school; betrayal by her caregiver's niece; deportation to Sered, then Theresienstadt in 1944; transfer from an adult barrack, where she suffered from loneliness, to a children's barrack; Czech teachers providing a wonderful education; wetting her bed nightly due to stress; no facilities for washing; suffering from lice; liberation by Soviet troops in May 1945; transfer to Prague; returning to an aunt in Bratislava; living with her grandparents in Kežmarok; attending high school; studying economics in Prague; joining a choir; marriage in 1953; and the births of two children. Ms. P. discusses not being able to obtain the contents of her parents' business or compensation for them (they were enormously valuable) and shows photographs.

1 videocassette