Erika W. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Erika W., who was born in Saarbrücken, Germany in 1936. She recounts her father's communist activities; being baptized, although her mother was "non-Aryan"; her father's military enlistment, hoping to save the family from concentration camps; two memories of her mother, one at a train station and another during an accident; placement with her three brothers in a convent orphanage in Landstuhl; hunger, illness, and arduous physical labor; antisemitic taunting; her brothers secretly bringing her food; learning their mother perished in Ravensbrück in 1943; placement with a foster family in 1950; having to work for them at home and in a cigar factory in France; return to the orphanage; becoming ill; a doctor and priest placing her with a caring foster family; caring for her father and working in Kiel; trying to learn about her past from him; several other jobs; working as a university librarian in Berlin; and retirement. Ms. W. discusses efforts to recover memories of her early life; physical illness resulting from the war years; her younger brother's congenital disability due to her mother being beaten during pregnancy; and visiting Ravensbrück after German reunification. She shows photographs.
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
- W., Erika, -- 1936-
Subjects
- Holocaust survivors.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- Orphanages -- Germany.
- Brothers and sisters.
- Video tapes.
- Women.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Postwar experiences.
- Convents.
- Foster parents.
- Child survivors.
- Postwar effects.
Places
- Landstuhl (Germany)
- Saarbrücken (Germany)
- Kiel (Germany)
- France.
- Berlin (Germany)
- Germany.
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat