Hedva Z. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Hedva Z., who was born in Maria?nske? La?zne?, Czechoslovakia. She recounts living in Jas?o, then Przemys?l; attending university in L?viv; antisemitic harassment; working as a nurse in Kolomyi?a?; marriage in December 1939; living in Kosiv; Soviet occupation; confiscation of her husband's businesses; moving to Kolomyi?a?; German invasion; mass killings; sheltering orphaned children; ghettoization; supervising an orphanage; a former maid smuggling food to them; hiding the children during round-ups; assistance from the head of the Judenrat, Mordecai Horowitz; her parents' deportation (she never saw them again); most of the children in the orphanage being killed; obtaining false papers with assistance from her husband's German supervisor; escaping with his help; hiding in Osmolda; interdiction at the Hungarian border; imprisonment in Ivano-Frankivs?k; posing as non-Jews; transfer with her husband to a camp in L?viv, then to Majdanek in March 1943; assignment to a privileged position as a translator; continuing to pose as a non-Jew; helping others through her position, including altering selection lists; being shot when she was feeding a Jewish child (the child and his mother were killed in front of her); hospitalization; performances by a friend who was a professional singer; release with assistance from a Polish organization, the Red Cross, and a Wehrmacht officer; living in L?viv; reunion with her husband after his release; moving to Lublin; working with her husband (they posed as cousins); assisting the underground; sending notes and food to friends in Majdanek with assistance from a German officer; liberation by Soviet troops; working as a journalist; testifying at trials of Majdanek officials; reunion with an uncle; moving to ?o?dz?; her daughter's birth; moving to Jelenia Go?ra; her son's birth; and emigration with her family to Israel via Italy in 1950. Ms. Z. notes testifying against Hermine Braunsteiner and Hildegard Lachert, Majdanek officials, at trials in Du?sseldorf.
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.
Rules and Conventions
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Process Info
compiled by Staff of the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
People
- Lachert, Hildegard.
- Braunsteiner-Ryan, Hermine, -- 1919-1999.
- Horowitz, Mordecai.
- Z., Hedva.
Corporate Bodies
- International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
- Majdanek (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Holocaust survivors.
- Women.
- Video tapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Concentration camps -- Songs and music.
- Forced labor.
- Friendship.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Poland.
- War crime trials -- Poland.
- War crime trials -- Germany.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Soviet occupation.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Jewish ghettos.
- Jews -- Ukraine -- Kolomyi︠a︡.
- Orphanages -- Ukraine.
- Jewish councils.
- Escapes.
- Husband and wife.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, German.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Hiding.
- Mutual aid.
- Mass killings.
- Postwar experiences.
- Hospitals in concentration camps.
- False papers.
Places
- Łódź (Poland)
- Czechoslovakia.
- Lʹviv (Ukraine)
- Przemyśl (Poland)
- Jasło (Poland)
- Mariánské Lázně (Czech Republic)
- Kolomyi︠a︡ghetto.
- Ivano-Frankivsʹk (Ukraine)
- Osmoloda (Ukraine)
- Kolomyi︠a︡ (Ukraine)
- Kosiv (Ukraine)
- Jelenia Góra (Poland)
- Düsseldorf (Germany)
- Lublin (Poland)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat