Esther A. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Esther A., who was born in Sevluš, Czechoslovakia (presently Vynohradiv, Ukraine) in 1928, one of seven children. She recounts attending school; Hungarian occupation; a brother fleeing to the Soviet Union and two sisters to Budapest; anti-Jewish restrictions, including expulsion from school in 1942; round-up with her remaining family in spring 1944; deportation to the Ungvár (Uz︠h︡horod) ghetto, then six weeks later to Auschwitz/Birkenau; her uncle being shot in the head en route; separation with her sisters from her parents and youngest sister; seeing her father from afar once; encountering cousins who had been deported earlier; one sister's selection for work; no communication with other prisoner groups; transfer with her sister to Ravensbrück; their separation; transfer to Barth a few days later; slave labor in a factory; hospitalization; the prisoner physicians giving her extra food and keeping her more than a month; an evacuation march; abandonment by the guards the first night; staying in an abandoned home; moving to a prisoner of war camp; liberation by Soviet troops; repatriation to Prague; encountering a cousin who informed her that three of her sisters had survived; joining them in Budapest; learning no other immediate family survived; support from an uncle who lived in Brussels; joining him in 1948; marriage to a survivor; and the births of her children. Ms. A. discusses never losing hope, but constantly feeling terrorized in camps; believing her religious faith helped her to survive; relations among prisoners and prisoner groups; not sharing all her experiences with her children, to shield them; and feeling lucky to have had three surviving sisters.

6 videocassettes