Shirley K. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Shirley K., who was born in Oshmyany, Poland (presently Belarus) in 1930. She recalls Soviet occupation; German invasion; the murder of all Jewish men including her father; ghettoization; hiding cousins; aktions; and deportation to a labor camp with her mother, sister, and other relatives in 1942. Mrs. K. recounts slave labor in Poniewiez?; selection of her grandmother, sister, and cousins (she never saw them again); several transfers ending at Stutthof; learning of the gas chamber; constant brutalization; a guard who allowed her to join her mother after they were separated; transport to a slave labor camp; escape from a death march in 1944; hiding, then finding domestic work posing as Poles; smuggling food to two cousins; and liberation by Soviet troops. She describes working in a Soviet hospital in Bydgoszcz; moving to ?o?dz?; leaving school due to antisemitism; relocating to displaced persons camps including Eschwege; emigration to New York in 1949; her mother's remarriage; and her marriage in 1951. She discusses the importance of having been with her mother throughout the war; reluctance to discuss her experiences; and her children's encouragement to record her testimony.
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
- K., Shirley, -- 1930-
Corporate Bodies
- Stutthof (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Holocaust survivors.
- Postwar experiences.
- Mutual aid.
- Hiding.
- Postwar effects.
- Survivor-child relations.
- Antisemitism -- Postwar.
- Child survivors.
- Mass killings.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Friendship.
- Death marches.
- Refugee camps.
- Escapes.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Soviet occupation.
- Video tapes.
- Women.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Mothers and daughters.
- Jews -- Belarus -- Ashmi︠a︡ny.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Forced labor.
Places
- Poniewież (Lithuania : Concentration camp)
- Poland.
- Bydgoszcz (Poland)
- Łódź (Poland)
- Ashmi︠a︡ny (Belarus)
- Munich (Germany)
- Eschwege (Germany : Refugee camp)
- Oshmyany ghetto.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat.