Lilly S. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Lilly S., who was born in Czechoslovakia in 1924, one of six children. She recalls twenty-five Jewish families in her town; her parents' grocery store; cordial relations with non-Jews; Hungarian occupation; anti-Jewish restrictions; her brother's draft into a Hungarian slave labor battalion; German occupation in spring 1944; deportation to Irshava, the Munkács ghetto, then Auschwitz; separation from her parents and siblings (she never saw them again); remaining with three cousins; transfer to Płaszów; having to undress and burn corpses after a mass shooting; pointless slave labor; transfer back to Auschwitz in fall 1944, then three weeks later to Neustadt; slave labor in a weaving factory; a death march to Gross-Rosen in January; assisting her cousin; train transport to Bergen-Belsen; becoming very ill with typhus; her cousins preventing her removal from the barracks; liberation by British troops; living in Bergen-Belsen and Celle displaced persons camps; a long recuperation; emigration to the United States in 1948; assistance from the Joint; marriage; and the births of two sons. Ms. S. discusses learning her brother had survived; their reunion in 1950; reluctance to share her experiences with those who were not in camps; and her son's murder. She shows photographs.
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
- S., Lilly, -- 1924-
Corporate Bodies
- DP-Camp Bergen-Belsen.
- Płaszów (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Gross-Rosen (Concentration camp)
- Neustadt-Glewe (Concentration camp)
- American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
- Bergen-Belsen (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Concentration camp inmates -- Family relationships.
- Refugee camps.
- Forced labor.
- Death marches.
- Jews -- Ukraine -- Mukacheve.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Women.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Mass killings.
- Hungarian occupation.
- Postwar experiences.
- Mutual aid.
Places
- Celle (Germany : Refugee camp)
- Munkács ghetto.
- Czechoslovakia.
- Celle (Germany)
- Irshava (Ukraine)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat