Clara G. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Clara G., who was born in Rhodes in 1923, the youngest of six children. She recalls cordial relations with non-Jews in a multi-cultural environment; attending Catholic school; emigration of three older siblings; implementation of anti-Jewish laws by the Italian fascists in 1938; expulsion from school; German invasion in 1943; deportation with her siblings, parents, and grandmother to Auschwitz/Birkenau via Athens in July 1944; remaining with one sister (she never saw the others again); difficulties because they did not understand German; assistance from prisoners from Salonica; meaningless slave labor; her sister's illness and selection from the hospital; resolving to survive to tell her family's story; learning some Yiddish; staying close to other Rhodians; difficult relations with eastern European Jews; transfer to several camps including Landsberg; losing her faith in God; public hangings; a death march; liberation by United States troops; recovering in Munich and Innsbruck; exposure of SS men hiding as survivors; other survivors beating them; moving to Rome; hearing from her sisters and brother who had emigrated; working for UNRRA; marriage to a Rhodian; joining her brother in the Congo (Zaire) in 1947; and living in Israel from 1966, then Belgium from 1976.
Extent and Medium
4 videocassettes
Conditions Governing Access
This testimony is open with permission.
Conditions Governing Reproduction
Copyright has been transferred to the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. Use of this testimony requires permission of the Fortunoff Video Archive.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- G., Clara, -- 1923-
Corporate Bodies
- United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.
- Landsberg (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Postwar effects.
- Death marches.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Faith.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Postwar experiences.
- Concentration camps -- Sociological aspects.
- Revenge.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Forced labor.
- Sisters.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Women.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
Places
- Rhodes (Greece : Island)
- Munich (Germany)
- Athens (Greece)
- Italy.
- Israel.
- Congo (Democratic Republic)
- Innsbruck (Austria)
- Rome (Italy)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat