Magda S. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Magda S., who was born in a farming town near Munkacs, Czechoslovakia. She recalls moving to Munkacs; her close, extended family's happy, observant life; attending Jewish school; Hungarian occupation in 1938; antisemitic measures; her brother's conscription into a Hungarian forced labor battalion; German invasion; ghettoization with her parents in April 1944; the trauma of witnessing her uncle's beard being cut; internment in a brick factory; deportation to Auschwitz; separation from her parents (she never saw them again); being forced to discard her photos; remaining with her cousin; transfer to Stutthof and Bromberg; forced labor; extreme cold, hunger, and beatings; a death march; the guards' disappearance; staying with her cousin and another prisoner; liberation by Soviet troops; favorable treatment because she spoke Russian; returning to Munkacs via Warsaw; reunion with her brother; running a cigarette factory; her neighbors' refusal to return her family's property; smuggling herself to Czechoslovakia with her brother; living in Marienbad (Maria?nske? La?zne?); and their emigration to the United States in 1949. Mrs. S. discusses the impact of constant hunger; continuing fears when seeing trains; her unbroken spirit; and belief that her parents would be proud of her. 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
- S., Magda.
Corporate Bodies
- Stutthof (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Women.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Jews -- Ukraine -- Mukacheve.
- Forced labor.
- Death marches.
- Hungarian occupation.
- Mutual aid.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Postwar effects.
- Postwar experiences.
Places
- Mukacheve (Ukraine)
- Czechoslovakia.
- Warsaw (Poland)
- Mariánské Lázně (Czech Republic)
- Marienbad (Czechoslovakia)
- Bromberg (Poland: Concentration camp)
- Munckacs ghetto
- Munckacs (Hungary)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat