Paja L. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Paja L., who was born in Vilna, Poland in 1921. Ms. L. remembers working in a kindergarten; Soviet occupation; Lithuanian independence; German invasion; her father being seized from the street; anti-Jewish restrictions; ghettoization; moving into a friend's residence in the designated area; continuing to work with children; food shortages; joining a partisan group; meetings in cafes, which included literary talks by Abraham Sutzkever and Szmerke Kaczerginski; a friend offering to pretend she was his wife to save her from selection; remaining with her mother rather than leaving with partisans; their deportation to Kaiserwald; slave labor in a munitions factory; a Latvian woman bringing her extra food; singing to raise their spirits; transfer a year later to a farm; assistance from Polish civilian workers; return to the camp; a death march in January 1945; escaping with two friends; a German woman briefly sheltering them; recapture; a beating resulting in a permanent injury; liberation by Soviet troops; hospitalization in Gdan?sk, then Moscow, traveling to Vilna, then to ?o?dz?; working with the Bund; marriage; traveling to Warsaw, then Paris in 1948; and emigration to Argentina in 1949. Ms. L. emphasizes Jewish resistance, both individual and in partisan units.
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
- L., Paja, -- 1921-
- Sutzkever, Abraham, -- 1913-
- Kaczerginski, Szmerke, -- 1908-1954.
Corporate Bodies
- Stutthof (Concentration camp)
- Kaiserwald (Concentration camp)
- Allgemeyner Idisher arbayṭerbund in Liṭa, Poylen un Rusland.
Subjects
- Mutual aid.
- Partisans.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Postwar experiences.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Jewish resistance.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Forced labor.
- Escapes.
- Death marches.
- Soviet occupation.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Women.
- Video tapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Jews -- Lithuanian -- Vilnius.
- Jewish ghettos.
Places
- Vilna ghetto.
- Łódź (Poland)
- Vilnius (Lithuania)
- Poland.
- Vilna (Poland)
- Gdańsk (Poland)
- Moscow (Russia)
- Warsaw (Poland)
- Paris (France)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat