Chana W. Holocaust testimony
Abstract
Videotape testimony of Chana W., who was born in Fiume, Italy (presently Riejka, Croatia) in 1928, the third of four children in an orthodox family. She recounts cordial relations with non-Jews; anti-Jewish restrictions beginning in 1938, including losing their Italian citizenship; her brother's emigration to Palestine in 1939; eviction from their apartment; her father's deportation in mid-1940; working with her mother and sister in the family store; evacuation of all the Jews to Lago di Garda for several weeks; returning home; correspondence from her father suggesting they join him; her mother's reluctance to abandon the business; German invasion; traveling to Trieste, then Bolzano; staying one night with her mother's classmate who refused to keep them longer; returning to Trieste; contacting a group from which they obtained false papers; living as non-Jews in Lugo; learning others from Fiume had been caught; arranging to be smuggled to Switzerland; traveling to Milan; her grandfather meeting them; meeting smugglers in Varese; arrest at the border; interrogation; and imprisonment in Como, Varese, then San Vittore in Milan.
Extent and Medium
9 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., Chana, -- 1928-
Corporate Bodies
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
- Fossoli di Carpi (Concentration camp)
- Milan (Italy). -- Casa circondariale di San Vittore.
- International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
- Birkenau (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Women.
- Video tapes.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Jewish.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Personal narratives.
- Jewish children in the Holocaust.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children.
- Mothers and daughters.
- Sisters.
- Holocaust survivors.
- Aid by non-Jews.
- Mutual aid.
- Hospitals in concentration camps.
- Postwar experiences.
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, Italian.
- Forced labor.
- Concentration camp inmates -- Family relationships.
- Revenge.
- Child survivors.
- Antisemitism -- Prewar.
- False papers.
- Hiding.
Places
- Opole (Poland)
- Mestre (Italy)
- Milan (Italy)
- Bolzano (Trentino-Alto Adige, Italy)
- Trieste (Italy)
- OsĚwięcim (Poland)
- Lugo (Italy)
- Varese (Italy)
- Como (Italy)
- Italy.
- Rijeka (Croatia)
- Garda, Lake (Italy)
Genre
- Oral histories. -- aat