Blanche C. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Blanche C., who was born in Oster, Russia (presently Ukraine) in 1906, one of six children in a wealthy family. She recalls attending gymnasium; graduating from nursing school; cordial relations with non-Jews; marriage in 1929; traveling with her husband in Italy and France; her brother-in-law's role as an attorney in the Beilis trial; the births of three children; German invasion in 1941; her husband dying of a heart attack when the Germans entered their home; escaping from a mass killing with her two year old daughter (the rest of her family was killed); forced labor in a ghetto; wandering the countryside with her daughter; a religious Christian family hiding them for almost a year; her rescuer connecting her to a partisan group led by her cousin; gathering information for them dressed as a peasant; traveling to Kiev after the war; antisemitic responses to their presence; assistance from the Joint to travel to Italy in 1946; living in a displaced persons camp in Bari; working in Naples; emigrating to the United States in 1948; and devoting her life to her daughter. Ms. C. discusses hoping to find her other children, despite knowing they were dead; deriving purpose for her life from having saved her daughter; and feeling like a "broken person," both physically and due to her moral disappointment in humanity

1 videocassette