Theresa D. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Theresa D., who was born in Košice, Czechoslovakia in 1920, the younger of two daughters. She recounts moving to Antwerp in 1929 and Paris in 1932; her family's orthodoxy; feeling safe until the outbreak of war in 1939; traveling to Bayonne by train, hoping to emigrate by ship; traveling to Toulouse after the last ship left; rumors that Germans were coming; traveling to Luchon; her sister's marriage; moving to Lyon two months later; establishing a fur business; marriage in 1942; her husband receiving a notice for forced labor; being smuggled to Switzerland; being caught by border guards; her father's escape (he remained in Switzerland); a priest assisting their return to Lyon; hiding in an attic; her daughter's birth in September 1943; obtaining false papers as Turks; joining her mother, sister, and brother-in-law in Aix-les Bains; briefly returning to Lyon; moving to Le Puy; liberation in 1945; moving to Paris; reunion with her father; and emigration to the United States in 1953. Ms. D. notes many relatives who were killed in the Holocaust and her belief that God helped her and her immediate family survive. She shows photographs and documents.
Extent and Medium
1 videocassette
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
- D., Theresa, -- 1920-
Subjects
- Women.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Sisters.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- France.
- Husband and wife.
- Mothers and daughters.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Family.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Faith.
- Italian occupation.
- False papers.
- Hiding.
- Postwar experiences.
Places
- Bayonne (France)
- Paris (France)
- Antwerp (Belgium)
- Czechoslovakia.
- Košice (Slovakia)
- Bagnères-de-Luchon (France)
- Toulouse (France)
- Lyon (France)
- Aix-les-Bains (France)
- Le Puy (Haute-Loire, France)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat