Bela F. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Bela F., who was born in Radom, Poland in 1924. She recalls her happy, observant childhood; attending Jewish school; being rounded-up in September 1939 while playing; forced labor in Polano?w; joining her family in the Radom ghetto; continued forced labor in Polano?w; obtaining false papers; her father's arrest outside the ghetto; his execution in February 1942; working in a factory outside Radom; her mother's refusal to join her; the ghetto's liquidation (she never saw her mother, sister, and brother again); transfer to Bliz?yn in May 1943; forced labor; beatings; contracting typhus; a friend obtaining medicine for her; transfer to Auschwitz in May 1944; a guard assisting in an escape attempt; transfer to Birkenau; relations among prisoner groups; observing religious holidays; escaping a selection; transfer to Kratzau in November 1944; forced labor in a munitions factory; smuggling munitions to Czech partisans; liberation by Soviet troops; returning to Radom; leaving due to antisemitic violence; living in Prague and Paris; marriage; and emigration to the United States via Israel and Brazil. Mrs. F. discusses her close relations with her children due to her experiences and her desire to inform others about what happened.
Extent and Medium
3 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
- F., Bela, -- 1924-
Corporate Bodies
- Kratzau I (Concentration camp)
- Bliżyn (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Women.
- Video tapes.
- Forced labor.
- Jews -- Poland -- Radom (Województwo Mazowieckie)
- Jewish ghettos.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Escapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Czechoslovakia.
- Concentration camp inmates -- Religious life.
- Concentration camps -- Sociological aspects.
- Mutual aid.
- False papers.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Child survivors.
- Postwar experiences.
- Postwar effects.
- Partisans.
- Antisemitism -- Postwar.
- Survivor-child relations.
- Radom ghetto.
- Holocaust survivors.
Places
- Radom (Województwo Mazowieckie, Poland)
- Prague (Czech Republic)
- Paris (France)
- Poland.
- Polanów (Poland)
- Israel.
- Brazil.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat