Edit K. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Edit K., who was born in Ústí nad Labem, Czechoslovakia in 1926, the younger of two sisters in an affluent, assimilated family. She recounts attending a Czech school; cordial relations with non-Jews; visiting grandparents in Teplice; moving to Prague in September 1938; German invasion in March 1939; anti-Jewish restrictions, including expulsion from school; deportation with her family to the Łódź ghetto in fall 1941; working in a carpet factory; public execution of an escapee; receiving letters from her boyfriend who was in Theresienstadt; her father's deportation in September 1942 (she never saw him again); transfer to a shoe factory; non-Jewish friends sending them packages from Prague; deportation with her mother, sister, and best friend to Auschwitz in August 1944; their transfer to Bergen-Belsen in September, then to Salzwedel; privileged work for German soldiers; receiving extra food and clothing from one of them; a severe beating; transfer to a munitions factory; working with French prisoners of war; Allied bombings; Red Cross visits; liberation by United States troops in April 1945; transfer to a German air base to recover; returning to Prague in June; learning she and her mother had no relatives who had survived; marriage; divorce; emigration to Israel; and marriage to a survivor. Ms. K. discusses horrendous conditions in the Łódź ghetto, including lice, corpses in the street, and the pain of hunger; relations among national groups in the camps; the difficulty of conveying her experiences, the pain of which never leaves her; resulting health problems; and deciding not to have children. She dedicates this testimony to her father and other murdered relatives.

16 videocassettes