Helga F. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Helga F., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1926. She recounts increasing anti-Jewish actions; expulsion from public school in 1936; attending Jewish school; visiting relatives in Sweden who warned them to emigrate; her sense that Kristallnacht marked the end of her childhood; fleeing to Paris with her parents; her father's incarceration as an enemy alien prior to German invasion; his return after the invasion; his death from a heart attack in 1942; anti-Jewish regulations; being rounded-up with her mother in the Ve?lodrome d'hiver; her mother's release due to an influential friend; communicating with her mother with assistance from Ve?lodrome d'hiver employees; release before the final deportation; hiding with her mother under false papers from August 1943 until liberation in August 1944; working for the Joint; marriage to an American soldier; and emigration to the United States. Mrs. F. discusses her scars: loss of childhood; rootlessness; and recovering her identity. She notes that her children know she is a survivor, but she does not want to burden them with the details.
Extent and Medium
1 videocassette
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
- F., Helga, -- 1926-
Corporate Bodies
- American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
- VeĚlodrome d'hiver (Paris, France).
Subjects
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Women.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Jews -- Migrations.
- Refugees, Jewish.
- Kristallnacht, 1938.
- Mothers and daughters.
- Crystal Night, 1938.
- Child survivors.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- False papers.
- Hiding.
- Postwar effects.
- Postwar experiences.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Survivor-child relations.
Places
- Germany.
- Berlin (Germany)
- Paris (France)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat