Leah B. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Leah B., who was born in Jaros?aw, Poland in approximately 1926. She describes her family's candy business; attending a private Hebrew school; attending Zionist summer camps; German invasion; she and her sister leaving her parents (she never saw them again); transfer with a group of Polish girls to a labor camp via Krako?w; working in a radio factory; suspicious Ukrainians denouncing them; transfer to a prison in Weimar; interrogation; transfer to Auschwitz in February 1943; transfer to Birkenau; a brutal beating by a Jewish inmate for leaving the barracks to volunteer for a job; organizing her sister's release from the camp hospital; transfer to Auschwitz; work in a munitions factory; public hanging of prisoners who had blown up a crematorium; a death march in January; escaping in a group; hiding in a barn; a Catholic priest bringing them food; the priest hiding them; liberation by Soviet troops; traveling to Katowice; her marriage in 1946; returning briefly to Jaros?aw; traveling to a displaced persons camp in Germany; and emigrating to the United States with assistance from the Joint. Ms. B. mentions suffering from nightmares, nervousness, and headaches as a result of her experiences; and attributes her survival to her sister and luck.
Extent and Medium
2 videocassettes
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
- B., Leah, -- 1926?-
Corporate Bodies
- American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Women.
- Postwar effects.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Postwar experiences.
- Soviet occupation.
- Child survivors.
- Hiding.
- Mutual aid.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, German.
- Zionists.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Escapes.
- Sisters.
- Forced labor.
- Nightmares.
- Death marches.
Places
- Katowice (Poland)
- KrakoĚw (Poland)
- Weimar (Thuringia, Germany)
- Poland.
- JarosĹaw (Poland)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat