Rachel K. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Rachel K., who was born in Sokoły, Poland in approximately 1921, one of two children. She recounts attending a Polish public school; antisemitic harassment; attending a Jewish gymnasium in Białystok; German invasion; Soviet occupation a week later; moving to Białystok; her father and brother fleeing to Vilna; she and her mother joining them; her father living in another town due to his immigrant status (she never saw him again); German invasion; anti-Jewish restrictions; forced labor cleaning German soldiers' quarters; ghettoization; hiding during round-ups; her mother arranging for them to be smuggled to the Białystok ghetto; the Judenrat finding them a room and work; attending a meeting led by the Judenrat head, Ephraim Barash; escaping from a work group in Łapy; hiding with a Polish friend; warning her uncle in Sokoły to hide; escaping a round-up; hiding with a Polish family who gave her their daughter's papers; sneaking back to the Białystok ghetto; leaving again to arrange her family's escape; a round-up in August 1943; hiding in a bunker with her mother, brother, and others for two weeks; capture; escaping with her mother and brother; hiding in an attic; Poles helping them leave the ghetto; help from other Poles in nearby villages; building a bunker in the forest for the winter; moving in the spring; her brother's capture and murder; liberation by Soviet troops; returning to Białystok; encountering Polish antisemitism; working in a school for Jewish orphans; moving to Sokoły; reporting her brother's killers and testifying against them for revenge; their kibbutz moving to Walbrzych, Legnica, then Ulm displaced persons camp; attending a Dror seminar in Indersdorf; and emigration with her mother to Israel in 1948. Ms. K. sings a Yiddish song from the ghetto.
Extent and Medium
7 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
- K., Rachel, -- 1921?-
- Barash, Ephraim, -- 1892-1943.
Corporate Bodies
- Histadrut noʻar Tsiyonit sotsyalisṭit "Deror" be-Germanyah.
Subjects
- Antisemitism -- Postwar.
- Forests.
- Postwar experiences.
- False papers.
- Bunkers.
- Hiding.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- Soviet occupation.
- Brothers and sisters.
- Jewish ghettos -- Songs and music.
- Mothers and daughters.
- Refugee camps.
- Revenge.
- Escapes.
- Jewish councils.
- Forced labor.
- Jews -- Poland -- BiaŁystok.
- Jews -- Lithuania -- Vilnius.
- Jewish ghettos.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Women.
- Video tapes.
- Holocaust survivors.
Places
- Poland.
- Sokoły (Łomża, Poland)
- Białystok (Poland)
- Vilnius (Lithuania)
- Łapy (Poland)
- Wałbrzych (Poland)
- Legnica (Poland)
- Indersdorf (Germany)
- Vilna ghetto.
- Białystok ghetto.
- Ulm (Germany : Refugee camp)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat