Marta K. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Marta K., who was born in Oradea, Romania in 1924. She recounts her family's strong Hungarian identity and rich cultural milieu; Hungarian occupation in 1940; anti-Jewish restrictions; her brother's service in a slave labor battalion (she never saw him again); ghettoization in 1944; deportation to Auschwitz in June; separation from her father upon arrival (she and her mother never saw him again); her mother providing emotional support to many young women; their transfer to Fallersleben in August; sabotaging the armaments in the factory; transfer to Salzwedel; liberation by United States troops; returning home via Timis?oara; marriage to a former boyfriend; her mother's marriage to a survivor; oppressive conditions under communism; the births of two daughters; and their emigration to the United States in 1962. Ms. K. discusses the importance to her survival of her mother's optimism; singing and telling jokes and being cheered by reunions in the camps; losing seventy-two relatives during the Holocaust; her mother and she sharing their experiences with her children; and convincing Miklo?s Nyiszli (a prisoner-physician under Josef Mengele), whose wife and daughter she knew in Auschwitz, to write his memoirs. She contrasts her idyllic childhood with the Nazi and communist periods.

2 videocassettes