Magdalena R. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Magdalena R., who was born in Žilina, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1924. She recalls a loving family environment; anti-Jewish restrictions following Slovak independence; her father placing her in a tuberculosis sanitarium to prevent her deportation; living with her parents and brother in Rajec; joining the partisans during the Slovak uprising; escaping with her family to a forest cabin; leaving with her father to obtain medication for him; Germans discovering the cabin while they were gone (they shot her mother); deportation with her father to Sered, then a week later to Auschwitz/Birkenau; separation from her father (she never saw him again); remaining with a cousin; their transfer a week later to Kurzbach; slave labor digging anti-tank ditches; becoming inured to corpses all around her; a German supervisor obtaining better clothes and shoes for them; encountering a man from Žilina who gave her extra food; a death march to Gross-Rosen; male prisoners "adopting" females; assistance from the man who "adopted" her; train transport to Bergen-Belsen; epidemics, starvation; and thirst; liberation by Canadian troops in April; recuperating with her cousin in Glyn-Hughes hospital in the displaced persons camp; returning home via Plzeň; reunion with her brother; encountering a Nazi collaborator; authorities doing nothing when she reported him since there was no evidence; attempting suicide; moving to Prague for five years; returning to Slovakia; completing her education; marriage; raising her son; and her divorce. Ms. R. notes discussing her experiences after the war, but sensing others did not want to hear; the difficulty of conveying the horrors of the camps; visual memories of her early life, but not being able to connect the images; visiting Auschwitz/Birkenau; exhibiting photographs of that trip; meeting friends from Žilina when she visited Israel; and the importance to her of her Jewish self-awareness despite having no affiliation with the Jewish community.
Extent and Medium
2 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
- R., Magdalena, -- 1924-
Corporate Bodies
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Sered (Concentration camp)
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
- Gross-Rosen (Concentration camp)
- Bergen-Belsen (Concentration camp)
- DP-Camp Bergen-Belsen.
Subjects
- Postwar experiences.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Child survivors.
- Suicide.
- Mutual aid.
- Postwar effects.
- Video tapes.
- Women.
- Holocaust survivors.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Fathers and daughters.
- Forced labor.
- Identification (Religion)
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Underground movements -- Slovakia.
- Concentration camps -- Psychological aspects.
- Refugee camps.
- Death marches.
- Concentration camp inmates -- Family relationships.
Places
- Czechoslovakia.
- Kurzbach (Poland : Concentration camp)
- Prague (Czech Republic)
- Slovakia -- History -- Uprising, 1944.
- Žilina (Slovakia)
- Plzeň (Czech Republic)
- Rajec (Slovakia)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat