Ola S. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Ola S., who was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1914. She recalls her assimilated family; economic difficulties as antisemitism increased; German invasion; her brother's escape to Soviet territory and her sister's to Vilna, Japan, then Canada; marriage; ghettoization and subsequent poverty, starvation, deportations (including her parents), relocations, forced labor, and smuggling; and her husband's job as a policeman which enabled her to be smuggled as a boy into a forced labor camp in March 1943. She describes a former maid's efforts to hide her; obtaining false papers; working as a housekeeper; hearing Poles express joy at the ghetto's destruction; losing contact with her husband (she never saw him again); relocation to Pruszko?w following the Warsaw uprising; and liberation. Mrs. S. tells of returning to Warsaw; traveling to Lublin; reunion with her brother in Austria; residing in Germany; joining her sister in Canada; marriage; and emigration to the United States. She discusses the importance of her hope of joining her sister in Canada to her survival and the many Poles who could have betrayed her and did not.
Extent and Medium
3 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
- S., Ola, -- 1914-
Subjects
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Women.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Jews -- Poland -- Warsaw.
- Jewish ghettos.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Forced labor.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Husband -- Death.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Postwar experiences.
- Mutual aid.
- Hiding.
- False papers.
Places
- Warsaw ghetto.
- PruszkoĚw (WojewoĚdztwo Mazowieckie, Poland)
- Lublin (Poland)
- Poland.
- Warsaw (Poland)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat