Sima S. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Sima S., who was born in Vilna, Poland (presently Vilnius, Lithuania) in 1924, one of three children. She recounts attending Hebrew and Yiddish schools; a rich Jewish cultural environment; participating in drama, choir, and scouts; antisemitic harassment; Soviet occupation, then Lithuanian control in 1939; she and her family living with an uncle in Dokshytsy; their return to Vilnius; performing in a Yiddish theater; German invasion in June 1941; anti-Jewish restrictions; a round-up including her brother and father (she never saw them again); brief imprisonment; ghettoization; assignment sewing German uniforms; participating in cultural activities for youth, including a drama club and choir; her sister's hospitalization; bringing her home after hearing rumors of a round-up; delivering packages for the underground; deportation to Vivikonna; slave labor in the kitchen; assistance from Dutch prisoners of war; observing Kommandant Helmut Schnabel kill a woman prisoner; transfer to Vaivara, then Narwa; slave labor in the kitchen; encountering Hirsh Glick (he wrote many songs including the partisan anthem); singing to raise their morale; slave labor for Organization Todt; transfer to Kiviõli in 1944; slave labor felling trees and in a cement factory; observing the even worse condition of Soviet POWs; continuing help from the Dutch; Glick bringing her food for her birthday; assignment to a limestone quarry; and transfer to Goldfilz.

14 videocassettes