Frances W. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Frances W., who was born in Kon?us?, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (presently Slovakia) in 1918, one of eight children. She recalls living in Uz?h?horod; training as a seamstress; Hungarian occupation; anti-Jewish restrictions; all her brothers, except the youngest, being drafted into Hungarian slave labor battalions; German invasion; ghettoization; deportation with her parents, sister, sister-in-law, and their children to Auschwitz; separation from her family (she never saw them again); volunteering as a dressmaker; a death march, then train transport to Bergen-Belsen in January 1945; a very high death rate; contracting typhus; liberation by British troops; friends caring for her; returning home via Prague and Budapest; reunion with her fiance?, youngest brother, sister, and brother-in-law; moving with her husband to the Sudetenland, then Brno; and emigration to the United States in 1949 upon receiving affidavits from her husband's sister. Ms. W. discusses nightmares and health problems resulting from her experiences; the births of two children; and not sharing her experiences with them or others because it is too painful for her.
Extent and Medium
1 videocassette
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
- W., Frances, -- 1918-
Corporate Bodies
- Bergen-Belsen (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Women.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Video tapes.
- Forced labor.
- Nightmares.
- Jewish ghettos.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Death marches.
- Jews -- Ukraine -- Uz︠h︡horod.
- Hungarian occupation.
- Postwar effects.
- Survivor-child relations.
- Mutual aid.
- Postwar experiences.
- Holocaust survivors.
Places
- Austria.
- Koňuš (Slovakia)
- Budapest (Hungary)
- Sudetenland (Czech Republic)
- Uz︠h︡horod (Ukraine)
- Prague (Czech Republic)
- Brno (Czech Republic)
- Ungvár ghetto.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat