Viola O. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Viola O., who was born in Munkács, Czechoslovakia (presently Mukacheve, Ukraine) in 1928, one of six children. She recalls holiday gatherings at their home; Hungarian occupation; four siblings living in Budapest; anti-Jewish restrictions, including her expulsion from school; ghettoization; deportation to Auschwitz; separation from her brother and parents (she never saw them again); assignment with three cousins to the Zigeunerlager (Gypsy Lager); their transfer to Reichenbach; slave labor in a factory; being bitten by a guard dog; liberation by Soviet troops; traveling to Budapest, then Munkács; reunion with another brother and her sisters; smuggling themselves to Frankfurt; contacting their aunt in the United States; emigration with her sister and brother-in-law in May 1946; marriage in 1947; raising five children (one son died); and helping her husband in their bakery. Mrs. O. discusses bitterness and reluctance to share her experiences after the war; her cousin preventing her suicide in Reichenbach; her sister's murder by her husband who then committed suicide; and gratitude to and love for the United States. She shows photographs.
Extent and Medium
2 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
- O., Viola, -- 1928-
Corporate Bodies
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Women.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Hungarian occupation.
- Postwar experiences.
- Child survivors.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Concentration camp inmates -- Family relationships.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Jews -- Ukraine -- Mukacheve.
Places
- Munkács ghetto.
- Reichenbach (Poland : Concentration camp)
- Budapest (Hungary)
- Frankfurt am Main (Germany)
- Mukacheve (Ukraine)
- Czechoslovakia.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat