Aviva U. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Aviva U., who was born in Warsaw, Poland after her father's death. She recalls attending a Polish school, the only Jew in a quota; staying with her grandparents in Otwock; German invasion; returning to Warsaw; ghettoization; attending school; escaping a mass killing when her mother's body knocked her down and she feigned death; obtaining false papers from her mother's friend; escaping from the ghetto; posing as a Russian refugee; exposure by a Jew; denying her Judaism under torture; a priest attesting she was Catholic; transport to Germany for forced labor; working for a village mayor from 1943 to 1945; arrival of Soviet troops; joining the Soviet army to take revenge; working as a translator in Berlin; identifying collaborators who were immediately hung; deserting; returning to Warsaw and Otwock; returning to Germany due to Polish antisemitism; suffering from mental illness; studying in Munich; marriage; her daughter's birth; and their emigration to Israel in 1948. Mrs. U. discusses difficulties having her experiences heard in Israel; problematic relations with her daughter; the meaning of revenge in her life; and contemporary Israeli politics. She notes only now in Israel is the individual Holocaust experience valued apart from the collective Jewish experience.
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
- U., Aviva.
Subjects
- Postwar effects.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Participation, Soviet.
- Escapes.
- Child survivors.
- Israel.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Revenge.
- Forced labor.
- Survivor-child relations.
- Postwar experiences.
- False papers.
- Antisemitism -- Postwar.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Mass killings.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Hiding.
- Women.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Jews -- Poland -- Warsaw.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
Places
- Warsaw (Poland)
- Otwock (Poland)
- Berlin (Germany)
- Munich (Germany)
- Germany.
- Poland.
- Warsaw ghetto.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat