Irena B. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Irena B., who was born in Kraków, Poland in 1923, the youngest of three sisters. She recounts visits to her grandfather's farm in Borek Fałęcki; attending a Polish school, then a Jewish gymnasium; German invasion; her father, sister, brother-in-law, and their child fleeing to Lʹviv (she never saw them again); anti-Jewish restrictions; completing a nursing course; eviction; joining an uncle with her mother and sister in Borek; her sister's marriage; working as a German teacher; receiving postcards from her father who had been deported by the Soviets to Samarkand; assignment to the Kraków ghetto in March 1942; forced labor in a brush factory; her mother's deportation (she never saw her again); living with her uncle; arrival of Soviet prisoners of war who were treated worse than the Jews; her sister's husband obtaining false papers; their escape; transfer to Płaszów; a family friend preventing her rape by a Ukranian guard; a public hanging; obtaining extra food from friends; transfer to Skarżysko-Kamienna; encountering a cousin and a friend; assignment to the kitchen of Werk B; Ukrainian guards providing extra food that she shared with fellow prisoners; assisting her cousin who was very weak; a woman suffocating a child after giving birth; reassignment to the munitions factory; transfer to Częstochowa; improved conditions; her cousin's transfer; liberation by Soviet troops; and returning to Kraków. Ms. B. discusses loneliness, starvation, cruelty, the prisoner hierarchy, and her reluctance to share her story with anybody.

8 videocassettes