Herta M. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Herta M., who was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia in 1935. She recounts her grandfather's, parents' and her deafness; not attending a school for the deaf in Vienna due to the Nazi regime; being sent with her older, hearing sister, posing as non-Jews, to a farm owned by deaf people; being returned to Bratislava; learning their parents had been deported (they never saw them again); being sent elsewhere, then to Bergen-Belsen; her sister biting a doctor who wanted to separate them; piles of corpses; encouraging her sister when she had given up hope; caring for her when she was ill; sometimes playing with other children; loneliness despite her sister's efforts to communicate with her; liberation by British troops; transfer to Sweden; attending a school for the deaf in Stockholm, her first educational and peer experience; assistance from the Red Cross; emigration with her sister to the United States in 1948 to join relatives; attending the Lexington School for the Deaf; marriage to a man she met there; the births of three deaf children; her husband's death; remarriage; and her second husband's death. Ms. M. discusses nightmares and fears of losing her children due to her experiences, and finding some peace after visiting Bratislava with her sister and son.

1 videocassette