Erica S. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Erica S., who was born in Leipzig, Germany in 1909, one of two children. She recounts attending boarding school in Frankfurt am Main; meeting her future husband in Wiesbaden; marriage in 1932 after he completed dental school; the births of two children; laws prohibiting her husband from practicing; his trip to London to arrange for their emigration; sending their children to stay with her parents in September 1938; Kristallnacht; her father's arrest; her husband's deportation to Buchenwald when she went to get the children; obtaining his release (her uncle died there); boarding a ship in Hamburg with her children, husband, his two sisters, and a dental technician; traveling to Amsterdam, then Dover; visiting her former governess, who later assisted her brother and his family to leave Germany for England; a four-week journey to British Honduras (presently Belize); bringing her parents, other relatives, and friends from Germany; arrest as enemy aliens; transfer to Panama; her father suffering a stroke; her husband's transfer to a prisoner of war camp in Tennessee; transfer with her children and parents to Ellis Island, then to an internment camp in Texas; minimizing her contact with the non-Jewish, German prisoners; visits from a local rabbi; her children's bar and bat mitzvahs; her husband's arrival; their release; and her father's death in 1943. Ms. S. notes her husband's inability to practice in the United States and his reluctance to discuss his time in Buchenwald. She shows documents.
Extent and Medium
2 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., Erica, -- 1909-
Subjects
- Husband and wife.
- Kristallnacht, 1938.
- Jewish refugees.
- Jews -- Migrations.
- Jews -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- Germany.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Women.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Noncitizens -- Evacuation and relocation.
- Postwar experiences.
- Crystal Night, 1938.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Nuremberg laws.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, British.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Evacuation of civilians -- United States.
- Families.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Evacuation of civilians -- Great Britain.
- Mothers and daughters.
- Fathers and daughters.
Places
- Leipzig (Germany)
- Frankfurt am Main (Germany)
- Germany.
- Wiesbaden (Germany)
- Hamburg (Germany)
- Amsterdam (Netherlands)
- Dover (England)
- Belize.
- Panama.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat