Gisela G. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Gisela G., who was born in Tarnów, Poland in 1924, one of four children. She recalls her close and large extended family; her father's death in early 1939; working in his hat business; German invasion; anti-Jewish restrictions; arrest for walking on the sidewalk; release; her mother and younger brothers hiding with a former non-Jewish employee during round-ups; she and her sister being exempted from round-ups due to their factory jobs; her mother being caught; ghettoization; building a bunker for those with no work permits; one brother's deportation; a selection in which her sister refused to leave their younger brother and an infant and its parents were shot; killing of her relatives in the bunker; loss of hope knowing she was the only survivor of her immediate family; deportation to Płaszów with a friend in fall 1943; random shootings by Amon Goeth; the camp underground placing her in the hospital and providing medication when she was ill; slave labor in the Madritsche factory; transfer to Wieliczka; a civilian worker and a soldier leaving her food which she shared with others; return to Płaszów in late 1944; transfer to Auschwitz/Birkenau; assignment with her friend to privileged jobs repairing clothing for the SS; sham improvements for a Red Cross visit; train transport to Bergen-Belsen in January 1945; assisting her friend who was very sick; volunteering for transfer due to the horrendous conditions; train transport to Venusberg; giving her morning bread to her friend; train transfer to Mauthausen; receiving food en route from the Red Cross in Prague; liberation by United States troops in May; returning to Poland with her friend; leaving via Katowice due to killings of Jews; and living in Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp, then in Munich. Ms. G. notes her dismay that genocide is still occurring. She shows photographs and documents.

1 videocassette