Ida F. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Ida F., who was born in Zbaraż, Poland (presently Zbaraz︠h︡ , Ukraine) in 1921, the elder of two daughters. She recounts her father's medical practice and her mother teaching gymnasium until her sister's birth; her large extended family; attending public school; her family's focus on music and literature; cordial relations with non-Jews; attending university in Lʹviv in 1938, where she first experienced antisemitism; hiding with her sister during the war resulting in their very close relationship; assistance by Poles; and emigration to Israel when she was thirty-six. Ms. F. discusses writing poetry prior to and during the war; writing her first short story in 1948 based on a story her sister had told her in 1941; basing her short stories on her and her relatives' experiences during the Holocaust using pseudonyms; the importance of authenticity when writing about the Holocaust; her inability to write about any other topic; changes in public perception of the signifigance of individual survivor stories after the Eichmann trial; every Holocaust survivor living in two realities - the present world and their world of very strong memories; the impact of her prodigious reading as a child on her writing; translation of her book, A Scrap of Time, originally written in Polish, into eleven languages; and pleasant meetings with high school students, despite her reluctance to discuss her own experiences. She discusses authors who write about the Holocaust and the limits of language to portray the Holocaust.

6 videocassettes