Rivka P. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Rivka P., who was born in Kaunas, Lithuania in 1923, the oldest of four children. She recounts her father's role in the community as a rabbi; her mother managing their large business; graduating from a Jewish-Lithuanian school; Soviet occupation in 1940; confiscation of the family business; participating in Betar; marriage in 1941; German invasion; round-up of her husband and his father (she never saw them again); returning to her parents' home; round-up of her father (he did not return); one brother's arrest; his release due to the influence of a cousin who was on the Judenrat; the same brother's round-up from which he did not return; ghettoization; slave labor at an airport; she and her sister smuggling food with help from non-Jewish friends with whom they often hid; reassignment to labor at a brush factory; hiding with her siblings during round-ups; learning her other brother had been killed; betrayal when trying to obtain false papers; torture and imprisonment with her sister for six months; release due to their cousin's influence; hiding in a bunker with her sister, mother, and others during the ghetto liquidation; escaping with her sister with help from guards; hiding in a forest in Seirijai; liberation by Soviet troops; returning to university in Kaunas; marriage; and emigration to Israel. Ms. P. discusses permanent psychological scars due to her experiences and the hurt inflicted upon her by today's youth having no interest in learning about the Holocaust.

2 videocassettes