Helen B. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Helen B., who was born in ?uko?w, Poland in 1928, one of five children. She recounts her family's affluence; attending public school; summering in the country in 1939; German invasion; fleeing to Wo?lka Domaszewska; returning home; brief Soviet occupation; Germans returning and plundering their store; her father's arrest and release; housing refugees in their home; anti-Jewish restrictions, including wearing the star; Germans searching for her father and beating her mother in 1942; round-ups and random killings; ghettoization; hiding with a Pole, who turned them over to the Germans; a German wounding her brother when he tried to escape; hiding in a bunker; her grandfather's and uncle's arrest and murder; hiding in many places with assistance from non-Jews; liberation by Soviet troops in July 1944; returning to ?uko?w; threats of violence by Poles; moving to Katowice in April 1945; joining her paternal grandmother in Munich; marriage to a friend from ?uko?w; and emigration to the United States in September 1949. Ms. B. discusses her children's "bitterness" toward Germans; accompanying her husband to testify in Germany; and attributing her survival to luck, her father, and help from non-Jews.
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. This testimony cannot be used for commercial advertising.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- B., Helen, -- 1928-
Subjects
- Holocaust survivors.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Women.
- Video tapes.
- Jews -- Poland -- Łuków (Siedlce)
- Jewish ghettos.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Families.
- Fathers and daughters.
- Mothers and daughters.
- Brothers and sisters.
- Child survivors.
- Soviet occupation.
- Hiding.
- Bunkers.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Postwar experiences.
- Antisemitism -- Postwar.
- Survivor-child relations.
Places
- Poland.
- Łuków (Lublin, Poland)
- Wólka Domaszewska (Poland)
- Katowice (Poland)
- Munich (Germany)
- Łuków ghetto.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat