Mira S. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Mira S., who was born in Zagreb, Yugoslavia in 1923. In a detailed and reflective testimony, she recalls her prosperous, observant childhood; participation in Maccabi; German occupation; her brother's conscription for forced labor; being hidden by non-Jewish employees; denunciation; moving to Italian-occupied Srebrenica through her father's contact within the Ustas?a; internment in an Italian camp; transfer to prison in 1944; deportation to Auschwitz; separation from her parents; forming a group with three Yugoslav friends; working in the Union Kommando; receiving food from a German worker; public hangings; the January 1945 death march to Gross-Rosen; transfer to Ravensbru?ck, then northern Germany; escaping with her friends from a death march; liberation by Soviet troops; moving to the American zone, then to Paris via Lille; working in Rome and Bari; returning to Paris; working for the Joint; and marriage. Mrs. S. discusses details of camp life; relations between prisoners; her profound sense of injustice; help from many non-Jews, particularly Italians; continuing close relations with her camp friends; being the only survivor of her family; psychological distress after liberation; ethnic strife in former Yugoslavia; reading a poem she wrote in Auschwitz at Yad Vashem; and reluctance to share her experience with her husband.
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
- S., Mira, -- 1923-
Corporate Bodies
- American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
- Ustaša, hrvatska revolucionarna organizacija.
- Maccabi World Union.
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Ravensbrück (Concentration camp)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
- Gross-Rosen (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Escapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Atrocities.
- Death marches.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Poetry.
- Hiding.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Mutual aid.
- Women.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, German.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Forced labor.
- Concentration camps -- Sociological aspects.
- Friendship.
- Postwar effects.
- Italian occupation.
- Postwar experiences.
Places
- Rome (Italy)
- Paris (France)
- Bari (Italy)
- Yugoslavia.
- Zagreb (Croatia)
- Lille (France)
- Srebrenica (Bosnia and Hercegovina)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat