Maren F. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Maren F., who was born in Kiel, Germany in 1938, the second daughter of a Jewish mother and non-Jewish father. Her war memories are primarily of bombings and running. She tells of her maternal family's emigration; her father's military service protecting them; her mother wearing a star, doing forced labor, and observing all the laws and regulations; destruction of their home in a 1943 bombing; hospitalization; hiding on a farm; leaving, fearing exposure; returning to Kiel; living in the apartment of evacuees; believing if her father returned, everything would be fine; her sister caring for her when their mother worked; meeting Jews after the war; recognizing she was different, but not knowing why (she never received any Jewish education); her father's return in 1950 from a Soviet POW camp; her parents' divorce; living in the Bremen displaced persons camp; and joining maternal relatives in the United States. Ms. F. discusses visiting her father with her husband in 1951; disappointment that he did not condemn German treatment of Jews; never seeing him again; hating the German language; identifying herself as a Jew; realizing she was a victim, and not to blame for what had happened to them; and trying to give her children a Jewish identity.
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., Maren, -- 1938-
Subjects
- Women.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- Children of interfaith marriage.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Refugee camps.
- Identification (Religion)
- Sisters.
- Mothers and daughters.
- Postwar experiences.
- Hiding.
- Postwar effects.
- Survivor-child relations.
Places
- Bremen (Germany : Refugee camp)
- Kiel (Germany)
- Germany.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat