Chaia G. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Chaia G., who was born in Kraśnik, Poland in approximately 1933. She recounts having very few memories of life before the war; her close relationship with their Polish maid; German invasion; fear during round-ups; her family hoarding food and burying valuables; her father, brother, and two uncles entering Budzyń; her father arranging for her to live with their maid in a nearby village; denouncement; incarceration in the Kraśnik synagogue; a Jewish official securing her release; hiding in a pigsty owned by her father's friend, then again with her maid; imprisonment in Kraśnik again; escape from a transport; hiding with a family friend; discovery by the Germans; transfer to Budzyń; avoiding execution; reunion with her brother and uncle; her uncle bringing her extra food; transfer to another camp, then Majdanek; slave labor in the laundry, then fields in summer 1944, where she could clandestinely eat the crops; tossing extra food to her uncles and brother en route from work; liberation by Soviet troops; assistance from the Red Cross; placement in an orphanage; attending public school; reunion with an uncle; returning to Kraśnik, Prague, Berlin, then Bergen-Belsen and Zeilsheim displaced persons camps; assistance from UNRRA and the Joint; emigrating to Palestine via Marseille in 1946; living in kibbutzim; serving in the military; marriage; and the births of two children. Ms. G. discusses relations between prisoners and her sense of isolation when not with her relatives in camps; learning her father had been killed in Budzyń; her sensitivities about how Israelis viewed and treated survivors after the war; and a recent visit to Kraśnik.

8 videocassettes