Esther S. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Esther S., who was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1918 to a family of five children. She describes their move to Paris in 1927; their orthodox home; antisemitic incidents at school; her brother's deportation in 1941; her father placing her niece with nuns and her nephew in a school in Brive-la-Gaillarde (they survived); hiding with her parents and sister in Donzenac for two years; obtaining false papers; her parents' arrest; voluntarily accompanying them with her sister; transfer to Drancy, via Brive and Pe?rigueux; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; separation from her parents; public hangings including that of Mala Zimetbaum; declining assignment to Canada Kommando to avoid separation from her sister; outdoor slave labor; assistance from a Belgian nurse; transfer to Bergen-Belsen; liberation by British and Canadian troops; one inmate killing a German; separation from her sister (she never saw her again); hospitalization; assistance from French POWs; and repatriation to Hotel Lutetia in Paris. Mrs. S. recalls her complete debilitation; recovering in an OSE home; living with her brother; marriage; difficult pregnancies; and spoiling her children to compensate for her experience. She discusses relationships between inmates; the importance of helping each other; and a recent unpleasant encounter with Germans.

2 videocassettes