Valeria S. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Valeria S., who was born in Čata, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1928, one of three sisters. She recounts cordial relations with non-Jews; Hungarian occupation in 1939, followed by anti-Jewish restrictions; confiscation of the family store; working to obtain food for her family; German invasion in March 1944; round-up and transport to Levice in May; deportation with her family to Auschwitz; horrendous conditions in the cattle car en route; an SS threatening to shoot her for assisting her grandmother to debark; separation with her sisters from their family; having all their hair shaved and receiving odd clothing; endless roll calls and terrible hunger; later being told of the gas chambers and crematoria (they thought the smoking chimneys were factories); crying all the time; the psychic pain of being compelled to attend a concert while living under conditions of total deprivation; her sisters being selected for transfer; sneaking to their side; transport to Stutthof; slave labor digging trenches; an attack by a dog resulting in her lifelong fear of dogs; transfer to another camp; entering a passive vegetative state, having lost all human feelings; a death march; an SS giving her sister extra food that she shared with her, her other sister, and cousin; escaping with her sisters and cousin; liberation by Soviet troops who fed and clothed them; locking themselves into a room to avoid rape; returning home, hoping to find their parents (they did not survive); marriage; the births of her children; her husband's death; and moving to Israel to join her daughter. Ms. S. recalls a slave labor supervisor who left food that she shared with her sisters and cousin; not discussing her experiences with her sisters and only recently with her children; and frequent nightmares.

1 videocassette