Hilda G. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Hilda G., who was born in 1925 in Berlin, Germany. She recalls moving to Amsterdam in 1928; German invasion in 1940; anti-Jewish restrictions; her brother hiding in Belgium; nurse's training in a children's center; helping the underground hide Jewish children; hiding to escape deportation; receiving a postcard her mother had thrown from a transport (she never saw her parents again); escaping with her brother via Maastricht to Brussels; posing as a non-Jewish nurse in the Ardennes, Gembloux, and Couvin; working for the resistance; her brother's arrest in 1944; moving with Patton's army and the Maquis to Namur and Brussels; and reunion with her brother. Mrs. G. describes entering Bergen-Belsen as part of a medical team; the massive clean-up and recovery; learning her friends Anne and Margot Frank perished there; the transition to a displaced persons camp; working with child survivors; renewed friendship with Otto Frank; marriage to a Swiss physician in 1947; being smuggled to Israel by the Haganah in 1948 to provide medical assistance in the war; returning to Switzerland; and emigration to the United States. She emphasizes the absence of discrimination in her prewar life and help received from many non-Jews during the war.
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
- Frank, Anne, -- 1929-1945.
- Frank, Otto, -- 1889-1980.
- G., Hilda, -- 1925-
Corporate Bodies
- DP-Camp Bergen-Belsen.
- Haganah (Organization)
- Bergen-Belsen (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Netherlands.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Belgium.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Jews -- Rescue.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Brothers and sisters.
- Women.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Zionist activities.
- Postwar experiences.
- Hiding.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Child survivors.
- Refugee camps.
- Israel-Arab War, 1948-1949.
Places
- Ardennes.
- Maastricht (Netherlands)
- Brussels (Belgium)
- Amsterdam (Netherlands)
- Berlin (Germany)
- Germany.
- Israel.
- Gembloux (Belgium)
- Namur (Belgium)
- Couvin (Belgium)
- Switzerland.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat