Judith B. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Judith B., who was born in Matei, Romania in 1927, the youngest of five children. She recounts attending Romanian school; Hungarian occupation; her brother's draft into a Hungarian slave labor battalion; German invasion in 1944; anti-Jewish restrictions; hiding valuables with non-Jewish friends; her brother's return: his deportation to Auschwitz; round-up; transfer with her parents and sisters to the Szamosújvár ghetto, then the Cluj (Kolozsvar) ghetto; deportation to Auschwitz; separation with her sisters and her sister-in-law and her sister from her parents (she never saw them again); a physician from their town providing them with extra food; their transfer to Altenburg; better conditions than Auschwitz; slave labor in a factory; a German supervisor allowing her to rest when she had work-related injuries; a death march; helping her sister who could no longer walk; liberation by United States troops in April 1945; traveling with her sister and others to Cluj via Karlovy Vary, Bratislava, and Budapest; reunion with her brothers; marriage to the physician who had helped them in Auschwitz (his wife and children had been killed); their son's birth in 1948; emigration to Israel in 1961; and her husband testifying at the Auschwitz trials in Frankfurt. Ms. B. attributes her survival to help from her sister-in-law and her future husband; discusses nightmares resulting from her experiences; and not sharing her experiences with her son so he would not suffer. She shows photographs and plays music during the testimony.
Extent and Medium
5 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
- B., Judith, -- 1927-
Corporate Bodies
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Altenburg (Concentration camp : Thuringia, Germany)
Subjects
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Women.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Sisters.
- Forced labor.
- Death marches.
- Refugee camps.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Jews -- Hungary -- Szamosújvár.
- Jews -- Romania -- Cluj-Napoca.
- Postwar effects.
- Survivor-child relations.
- Postwar experiences.
- Hospitals in concentration camps.
- Mutual aid.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Hungarian occupation.
- Nightmares.
Places
- Cluj ghetto.
- Szamosújvár ghetto.
- Budapest (Hungary)
- Karlovy Vary (Czech Republic)
- Bratislava (Slovakia)
- Matei (Romania)
- Romania.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat