Libiena E. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Libiena E., who was born in Nová Paka, Czechoslovakia (presently Czech Republic) in 1923, the youngest of five children. She recounts her family moving to Pardubice; attending school; their move to Prague in 1935; German occupation in 1939; surprise when her parents informed them they were Jewish; an uncle's arrest by the Gestapo (they never saw him again); anti-Jewish restrictions; expulsion from school; a non-Jewish teacher's offer to remain; choosing to work; removing her star to attend movies and swim; deportation with her parents to the Łódź ghetto; working in agriculture; the deaths of her parents from hunger; hospitalization for typhus; a job repairing telephones; her unsuccessful suicide attempt; marriage to a Polish Jew for companionship and safety; working in a textile factory; deportation with her husband's sisters to Ravensbrück in fall 1944; transfer to Wittenberg; slave labor in Arado Flugzeugwerke; always remaining with one sister-in-law and keeping her alive; frequent Allied bombings; abandonment by the Germans; liberation by Soviet troops; returning home; learning one brother had survived; joining her husband in Poland; and emigration to Israel in 1950. Ms. E. discusses details of ghetto and camp life, particularly starvation; her brother's execution following the Slánský trials; and writing a book about her experiences.

6 videocassettes