Esther B. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Esther B., who was born in Pabianice, Poland in 1927, the youngest of five children. She recounts her family's orthodoxy; experiencing daily discrimination as a Jew; her oldest brother's draft into the Polish military; German invasion; ghettoization; her brother's return, then deportation; knitting gloves to sell for food; her other brother volunteering for a labor camp (she never saw him again); transfer with her parents and sisters to the ?o?dz? ghetto in spring 1942; forced labor in a factory; hiding her parents during a round-up; one sister's deportation; deportation with her parents and sister to Auschwitz in August 1944; separation from her father (she remained with her mother and sister); transfer with her sister to Bergen-Belsen; protecting a fellow prisoner from selection; transfer to Geisenheim; slave labor in a munitions factory; her sister-in-law sharing extra food; a German supervisor leaving her food; transfer to Allach; liberation from an evacuation train by United States troops; living in a nearby villa, then in Flak-Kaserne and Funk Kaserne displaced persons camps; reunion with her brother; living with him, her sister, and sister-in-law in Munich; marrying a survivor from Pabianice in 1947; her siblings' emigration to Australia; and her emigration to the United States in 1949. She notes the recent death of her younger son.
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
- B., Esther, -- 1927-
Corporate Bodies
- Bergen-Belsen (Concentration camp)
- Allach (Concentration camp)
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Holocaust survivors.
- Video tapes.
- Women.
- Forced labor.
- Jews -- Poland -- Łódź.
- Jews -- Poland -- Pabianice.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Postwar experiences.
- Mutual aid.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Child survivors.
- Refugee camps.
- Concentration camp inmates -- Family relationships.
- Sisters.
- Mothers and daughters.
Places
- Geisenheim (Germany : Concentration camp)
- Funk Kaserne (Munich, Germany : Refugee camp)
- Pabianice ghetto.
- Łódź ghetto.
- Pabianice (Poland)
- Munich (Germany)
- Poland.
- Flak-Kaserne (Altenstadt, Germany : Refugee camp)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat