Miriam A. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Miriam A., who was born in Suchdol, Czechoslovakia (presently Czech Republic) in 1923, the youngest of three children. She recounts being the only Jewish family in town; a happy childhood; cordial relations with non-Jews; attending school in Kutná Hora; antisemitic harassment by teachers; attending boarding schools where they did not know she was Jewish until March 1939; German occupation; visiting Jewish friends in neighboring Kolín; anti-Jewish laws, including travel bans and confiscation of her father's business; hiding valuables with non-Jewish friends, including a priest; her oldest brother being sent for forced labor; her father being beaten and her arrest for hiding goods; an SS man attempting to rape her; her parents' and brother's trials for hiding weapons; their imprisonments; deportation to Theresienstadt with her other brother; a privileged kitchen assignment; sharing extra food with her brother; assistance from women in her barrack; sham improvements for a Red Cross visit; learning her mother had been sent to Auschwitz; asking Jacob Edelstein, the Jewish head, to send her there; his refusal, saying there was "no life" there; hospitalization for a severe burn; deportation with her brother to Auschwitz/Birkenau in October 1944; their separation upon arrival; encountering her cousin's wife; emotional numbness; vainly calling for her brother when near the men's camp; and transfer to Bergen-Belsen.

19 videocassettes