Ada F. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Ada F., who was born in Opalin, Poland (now Ukraine), in 1919. Mrs. F. describes her happy childhood in a rabbi's family; holiday observances; her family's disbelief about German antisemitic persecution in the late 1930s; the German invasion; separation from her family while on a train which was bombed en route to Che?m; and escaping with a girlfriend from the Che?m ghetto. She recalls hiding with other Jews in forest bunkers; betrayal by Poles; transport to a labor camp in ?o?dz?; witnessing atrocities; transfer to Auschwitz in November 1944; and liberation. She remembers arrest and interrogation as a "spy" when she tried to return to Opalin; six months' exile in Siberia; her marriage in Slonim; the birth of her daughter in a displaced persons camp near Ulm; unsuccessful efforts to go to Palestine; arrival in the United States; and the murder of her husband during a 1973 robbery. She reflects on her experiences with antisemitism in America, particularly a college professor whom she believed sympathetic to Hitler and a close friend who made antisemitic remarks.
Extent and Medium
2 videocassettes (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
- F., Ada, -- 1919-
Corporate Bodies
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Mutual aid.
- Postwar experiences.
- Hiding.
- Forced labor.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Antisemitism -- United States.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Forests.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Jews -- Poland -- Chełm (Lublin)
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Women.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
Places
- Chełm ghetto.
- Slonim (Belarus)
- Opalin (Ukraine)
- Ulm (Germany)
- Chełm (Lublin, Poland)
- Łódź (Poland)
- Poland.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- ftamc