Esther P. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Esther P., who was born in approximately 1925, one of ten children. She recounts living in Kolochava, Czechoslovakia (presently Ukraine); attending boarding school in Khust; her father's death in 1938; Hungarian occupation; anti-Jewish restrictions; forced relocation with her mother and four sisters to Sokirnitsa; their deportation to Auschwitz a month later; separation from her mother; efforts to stay together with her sisters; transfer after three months to Stutthof, then Bromberg; slave labor digging ditches; sharing food with her sisters; brutal treatment by guards and passing Hitler Youth; switching places with her sister who was assigned to a punishment barrack; hospitalization; a death march; abandonment by the guards; liberation by Soviet troops; transfer to Bydgoszcz, then Cze?stochowa; returning to Czechoslovakia; reunion with her brother; staying with her sister who was hospitalized in Romania; returning to Prague; living with her sisters in U?sti? nad Labem; marriage; her son's birth; emigration to Canada; and assisting her sisters emigrate to North America. Ms. P. discusses the importance of her faith, hope, and remaining with her sisters to her survival; nightmares and health problems resulting from her experiences; and not sharing her story with her children because she always cried, which upset them.
Extent and Medium
3 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
- P., Esther, -- 1925?-
Corporate Bodies
- Stutthof (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Hospitals in concentration camps.
- Postwar experiences.
- Postwar effects.
- Survivor-child relations.
- Nightmares.
- Faith.
- Hungarian occupation.
- Mutual aid.
- Forced labor.
- Concentration camp inmates -- Family relationships.
- Death marches.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Sisters.
- Women.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
Places
- Ústí nad Labem (Czech Republic)
- Prague (Czech Republic)
- Bromberg (Poland : Concentration camp)
- Canada.
- Bydgoszcz (Poland)
- Sokirnitsa (Ukraine)
- Romania.
- Częstochowa (Poland)
- Czechoslovakia.
- Kolochava (Ukraine)
- Khust (Ukraine)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat