Rella W. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Rella W., who was born in Mukacheve, Czechoslovakia in 1921, the oldest of eight children. She recalls her family's Hasidism; attending a Czech school; a large and close extended family; Hungarian occupation; one brother's conscription into a Hungarian slave labor battalion; ghettoization; obtaining false papers as a non-Jew; traveling to Budapest; arrest upon arrival; release to a ghetto the next day; deportation to Auschwitz; transfer to Płaszów; slave labor building roads; local prisoners sharing food; transfer back to Auschwitz four months later; seeing her sister one time; transfer to Mühlhausen after two weeks; becoming friends with Helen B.; transfer to Bergen-Belsen; separation from Helen B.; liberation by British troops; living in Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp; reunion with her sister; traveling with her to Plzeň, then Landsberg displaced persons camp; marriage; her sister's and brother's emigration to Israel; her daughter's birth in May 1948; and emigration to the United States in 1949. Ms. W. discusses the deaths of her parents, siblings, and other relatives and removal of her Auschwitz tattoo without her permission during surgery. 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
- W., Rella, -- 1921-
Corporate Bodies
- Bergen-Belsen (Concentration camp)
- Landsberg am Lech (Displaced persons camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Płaszów (Concentration camp)
- DP-Camp Bergen-Belsen.
- American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
Subjects
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Postwar experiences.
- False papers.
- Mutual aid.
- Refugee camps.
- Hungarian occupation.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Jews -- Ukraine -- Mukacheve.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Forced labor.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, Hungarian.
- Friendship.
- Sisters.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Women.
- Video tapes.
Places
- Mühlhausen (Erfurt, Germany : Concentration camp)
- Plzeň (Czech Republic : Refugee camp)
- Mukacheve (Ukraine)
- Munkács ghetto.
- Czechoslovakia.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat