Paula J. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Paula J., who was born in Radom, Poland in 1921. She speaks briefly of her happy childhood and her work as a tutor after the completion of her education. She vividly describes the German bombardment, occupation, and ghettoization of Radom and tells of conditions in the ghetto, where she first taught children in exchange for food and later volunteered for forced labor in an ammunition factory in order to smuggle food into the ghetto for her family. She recounts her separation from her parents (who later died in Treblinka) when she was required to live in the ammunition factory, where she remained until her deportation to Auschwitz in August, 1944. She discusses the evacuation of the factory workers, who were marched through Radom to Tomaszow, where they were loaded into cattle cars and transported to Auschwitz; the horrors of the selections at Auschwitz; and other aspects of her four month ordeal at the camp. In December, 1944, she was sent to Czechoslovakia as part of a transport of slave laborers for Siemens. She tells of her life there until her liberation by the Russians in May, 1945. She also speaks of her need to tell her story without shame, especially to her children and her grandchild; the effect of her experiences on her religious beliefs; and her lack of bitterness in spite of her refusal to forget the past.

3 videocassettes (3/4" u-matic)