Leah K. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Leah K., who was born in Gertsa, Romania (presently Hert︠s︡a, Ukraine) in approximately 1932, the youngest of seven children. She recounts attending private Hebrew school; her mother's role as a midwife and healer; antisemitic violence; joyful holiday and Sabbath observances; Soviet occupation; Romanian takeover; fleeing with her family after being warned they would be killed; a reprieve from execution when a Romanian soldier recognized her mother as the woman who had delivered him; returning home; a death march to Edineț in fall 1941; continuing to Ataki; her father's murder and disappearance of her brothers; staying overnight in Mohyliv-Podilʹsʹkyĭ, then transfer to Shargorod; one sister's death; transfer with her mother and twin sisters to the Kopaygorod ghetto; smuggling food for her family; her sisters' and mother's deaths; escaping to seek her aunt in Mogilev; a non-Jewish woman feeding and clothing her; continuing her journey; being mauled by dogs; women rescuing and caring for her; finding her aunt in the Mogilev ghetto; living in an orphanage; escaping; living as a non-Jew with a local woman; Jews denouncing her; deportation to Peciora; observing cannibalism; escaping; staying with many peasants en route to Mogilev; staying with the local woman with whom she had previously lived; renouncing her Judaism; moving to a Bucharest orphanage in 1944; apprenticeship as a dressmaker; her brother finding her; moving to an orphanage for children going to Palestine; missing that opportunity due to illness; and her other brother finding her. Ms. K. discusses attributing her survival to many simple peasants who helped her; plastic surgery in Canada to repair facial scars from the dog attack; her education there; and abusive treatment by a German psychiatrist when applying for reparations in 1968.

4 videocassettes