Fredka M. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Fredka M., who was born in Sosnowiec, Poland, in approximately 1921, one of two sisters. She recounts her family's affluence; attending public school; participating in No?ar ha-Tsiyoni; skiing in Zakopane; working with Moshe Merin (future head of the Judenrat) to assist refugees from Germany; German invasion; her father fleeing east; fleeing with her mother, sister, and aunt; returning when overtaken by German troops; her father's return; working for the Judenrat, then in the Jewish hospital; organizing educational activities and food for children; traveling to Os?wie?cim to observe what was occuring; a clandestine meeting with Zionists in the Cze?stochowa ghetto; visits from resistance leaders Eleazar Geller and Mordecai Anielewicz; contact with Polish underground members; arranging escapes from a mass round-up in August 1942; capture; release with assistance from Merin, despite his opposition to their efforts; forming an underground cell; obtaining weapons; ghettoization in March 1943; marriage to Yis?ra?el K?oz'ukh, a youth leader; arrest by the Jewish police; release; arranging to send Jews via Krako?w to Germany as volunteer laborers; attending a Nazi cocktail party in Tarno?w when establishing smuggling routes; meeting Armia Krajowa members in Warsaw, who helped them obtain weapons; hiding in a bunker with her parents; learning her husband was shot; finding and burying him; deportation of many underground colleagues; escaping; Poles hiding her, her husband's brother, and others; arranging for Jews to volunteer to work in Germany, posing as Poles; arrest; imprisonment in Trzebinia, then Katowice, posing as a Pole using her false papers; being recognized as a Jew; attempting suicide; transfer to Mas?owice, then Sosnowiec concentration camp; escaping; being smuggled to Z?ilina, then to Budapest in late 1943; reunion with Zionist underground members; obtaining legal emigration papers; emigrating to Palestine in 1944, stopping en route in Istanbul and Beirut; and working for UNRRA in Turin, then for the Jewish Agency in Paris after the war. Ms. M. discusses many people involved in Zionist movements and the ghetto as well as relations between groups. She shows a photograph of her murdered husband.
Extent and Medium
11 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. This testimony can only be used with permission of the donor or her heirs.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- Anielewicz, Mordecai, -- 1919-1943.
- Geller, Eleazar, -- 1916-
- Merin, Moshe, -- 1906-1943.
- Ḳoz'ukh, Yiśraʼel ʻAzriʼel, -- 1919-1943.
- M., Fredka, -- 1921?-
Corporate Bodies
- Sosnowiec (Concentration camp)
- Poland. -- Polskie Siły Zbrojne. -- Armia Krajowa.
- Noʻar ha-Tsiyoni (Organization)
- Jewish Agency for Israel.
- United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.
Subjects
- Hiding.
- Bunkers.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Mutual aid.
- Husband -- Death.
- Postwar experiences.
- Husband and wife.
- Suicide.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, German.
- Escapes.
- Hospitals in Jewish ghettos.
- Marriage in Jewish ghettos.
- False papers.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Jewish councils.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Jews -- Poland -- Sosnowiec (Województwo Śląskie)
- Jews -- Poland -- Częstochowa.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Jewish resistance.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Poland.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Women.
- Video tapes.
Places
- Sosnowiec ghetto.
- Częstochowa ghetto.
- Turin (Italy)
- Paris (France)
- Beirut (Lebanon)
- Palestine -- Emigration and immigration.
- Istanbul (Turkey)
- Žilina (Slovakia)
- Budapest (Hungary)
- Katowice (Poland)
- Masłowice (Poland)
- Tarnów (Województwo Małopolskie, Poland)
- Trzebinia (Województwo Małopolskie, Poland)
- Kraków (Poland)
- Warsaw (Poland)
- Oświęcim (Poland)
- Zakopane (Poland)
- Sosnowiec (Województwo Śląskie, Poland)
- Poland.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat