Agnesa K. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Agnesa K., who was born in Košice, Czechoslovakia in 1924. She recalls being raised in Prešov; close relations with her extended family; her Austrian nanny; minimal Jewish education; belonging to Hashomer Hatzair despite her father's anti-Zionism; Slovak independence; anti-Jewish harassment, including expulsion from school in 1940; attending sewing classes; deportations beginning in spring 1942; pretending to be sick during a round-up; her parents arranging her escape to relatives in Budapest; her uncle arranging to hide her in a convent in III. Kerület (Óbuda); visits from relatives; isolation from outside events; finding comfort in Catholicism; baptism during an air raid; German occupation; joining a group training to be nuns (the nuns thought it would be safer); realizing there were many Jewish women there; leaving with one Jewish friend; living with her friend's former maid in Budapest; liberation by Soviet troops; relatives finding her; traveling to Prešov; learning her parents had been deported (they did not return); living with an aunt in Košice, then Bratislava; and marriage in 1946. Ms. K. discusses the fates of many relatives during the war; postwar antisemitism in Czechoslovakia, including the Slansky trial, job loss, and her husband's imprisonment; support from non-Jews; and emigrating to Germany.
Extent and Medium
5 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., Agnesa, -- 1924-
Corporate Bodies
- World Hashomer Hatzair.
Subjects
- Postwar experiences.
- Antisemitism -- Postwar.
- Trials (Political crimes and offenses) -- Czechoslovakia.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Hiding.
- False papers.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Women.
- Video tapes.
- Faith.
- Christian converts from Judaism.
- Identification (Religion)
- Convents.
- Holocaust survivors.
Places
- Prešov (Slovakia)
- Budapest (Hungary)
- Czechoslovakia.
- Košice (Slovakia)
- III. Kerület (Budapest, Hungary)
- Bratislava (Slovakia)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat