Rachel M. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Rachel M., who was born in Sighet, Romania in 1929, one of six children. She recalls Hungarian occupation; her father's service in a forced labor battalion; his return over a year later; ghettoization; non-Jewish neighbors bringing them food; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau in summer 1944; separation from her family; finding her sister; volunteering for work; her sister's selection for transfer; trading with another set of sisters to remain together; their transfer to Christianstadt after seven weeks; improved conditions; slave labor in a munitions factory and her sister's in an asbestos mine; transfer to a privileged kitchen job; using her influence to get he sister a better job; older prisoners trying to educate them; a six week death March beginning in January; train transfer to Bergen-Belsen; pervasive disease, death, and starvation; liberation by British troops; hospitalization; learning no other family survived; transfer to Sweden; attending school in Stockholm; her sister's emigration to the United States; marriage to an American; and her emigration in 1955. Ms. M. discusses her sister's premature death resulting from work in the asbestos mine; her close relationship with her daughters and grandchildren; and surviving due to luck. She shows photographs.
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
- M., Rachel, -- 1929-
Corporate Bodies
- Bergen-Belsen (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Women.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Mutual aid.
- Postwar effects.
- Death marches.
- Sisters.
- Jews -- Romania -- Sighet.
- Jewish ghettos.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Hungarian occupation.
- Child survivors.
Places
- Sighet ghetto.
- Christianstadt (Poland : Concentration camp)
- Sighet (Romania)
- Stockholm (Sweden)
- Romania.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat