Sara K. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Sara K., who was born in Będzin, Poland in 1923, one of six children. She recounts completing public school at age fifteen; participating in Hashomer Hatzair; German invasion; hiding briefly with non-Jews, then an uncle in Zawiercie; her father's death; one brother's deportation; working in a clothing factory; round-up of her mother and one younger sibling (she never saw them again); her brother hiding from the Jewish police; brief incarceration in his place; separation from two siblings (she never saw them again); hiding in a bunker with her younger brother, aunt, and others; discovery by Germans; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; separation from her brother (she never saw him again); slave labor digging pits; forming a group with four others; sharing food with each other; hospitalization; a doctor saving her from selection; assignment sorting clothing of the dead; the Sonderkommando uprising; a death march, then train transfer to Ravensbrück (her friends supported her en route); transfer to Malchow; slave labor in a munitions factory; transfer by the Red Cross to Malmö; assistance from Hechalutz members; living for two months in Doverstorp, then Ljungsbro; moving to a Deror kibbutz in Norrköping; a visit by Ben-Gurion; illegal emigration to Palestine from Göteborg; interdiction by the British; incarceration on Cyprus; marriage; a lecture by Golda Meir; release; living on a kibbutz to the present time; and the births of two children. Ms. K. notes losing her belief in God due to her experiences; the importance of her group of friends to her survival; Israelis expressing disbelief in her experiences, and subsequently not sharing them with her children; persistent painful memories; and nightmares that have abated a bit recently.

10 videocassettes