Rosalyn O. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Rosalyn O., who was born in Krako?w, Poland, in 1925. She recalls her comfortable childhood; being taunted by non-Jewish students; her father reporting for army duty after the outbreak of war; his capture and imprisonment in a camp near Ostende, Belgium; and her mother's belief that as a POW's wife she was protected by the Geneva Convention. She describes the requisitioning of part of their apartment for a "decent" German couple; moving to the Krako?w ghetto; her mother's and two aunts' deportation in 1942; her transport to P?aszo?w in January 1943; witnessing executions and beatings; suffering from typhus and scarlet fever; and forced labor repairing the uniforms of dead German soldiers. Mrs. O. recounts deportation to Auschwitz in October 1944; a German soldier who gave bread to inmates; evacuation to Bergen-Belsen in January 1945; marching through the town center; then transport to Gelenau, a sub-camp of Flossenbu?rg, where she worked in the kitchen. She details transport to Mauthausen; being given food enroute by sympathetic Czech bystanders; liberation by American forces; reunion with her father in Poland; postwar Polish antisemitism; departure with her father for western Germany; and arrival in the United States in 1949.
Extent and Medium
1 videocassette (3/4" u-matic)
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
- O., Rosalyn, -- 1925-
Corporate Bodies
- Płaszów (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Bergen-Belsen (Concentration camp)
- Mauthausen (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Antisemitism -- Postwar.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Jews -- Poland -- Kraków.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Forced labor.
- Women.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
Places
- Kraków ghetto.
- Gelenau (Germany : Concentration camp)
- Poland.
- Kraków (Poland)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- ftamc