Paulina B. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Paulina B., a Catholic Romani, who was born in Banská Bystrica, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1919, one of twelve children. She recalls her family's poverty; living on a farm; caring for the animals; her father's death; not attending school; working as a mason from age fourteen; marriage at seventeen; the births of two children; her husband's death three years later; persecution by Germans and Hlinka guard; Romanies helping each other; her children's deaths due to lack of medical care; hiding with her mother and sisters in the basement of a neighbor's home, then in an underground shelter in the forest; a nearby villager providing food for them; one brother's death in the partisans; liberation by Soviet troops; traveling to another village; returning home; finding their houses destroyed; adopting a girl from an orphanage; and present-day discrimination against Romanies.
Extent and Medium
1 videocassette
Conditions Governing Access
This testimony can only be viewed at Yale by Yale faculty and/or students.
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. This testimony or excerpts from it cannot be used for publication.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- B., Paulina, -- 1919-
Corporate Bodies
- Hlinkova slovenská l̕udová strana.
Subjects
- Postwar experiences.
- Women.
- Video tapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Slovak.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Romani.
- Romanies -- Slovakia -- History -- 20th century.
- Romanies -- Nazi persecution -- Slovakia.
- Hiding.
- Forests.
- Partisans.
- Children -- Death.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Slovakia.
- Sisters.
- Mothers and daughters.
- Mutual aid.
- Aid by non-Romanies.
Places
- Banská Bystrica (Slovakia)
- Czechoslovakia.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat