Irene S. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Irene S., a non-Jew, who was born in Cephalonia, Greece in 1929, the second of four children. She recounts the benign Italian occupation in 1941; German invasion in 1944; the murder of a large group of Italian soldiers by Germans; troops entering her village on April 23, 1944; separation of the men from the women and children, including her father and older brother; burning of the village; fleeing with her mother and younger siblings to her father's sister in Samos; her mother visiting her father and brother in jail; learning all the men had been executed on May 1; subsequent hardships due to the Greek Civil War; her brother and sister joining relatives in the United States in 1953; and joining them with her mother in 1956. Ms. S. discusses the importance of people learning of the murders of civilians by German troops on Cephalonia. She shows an icon from the local church burned by the Germans and family photographs, including one of her niece at the memorial marking the murder of her father, brother, and other men.

1 videocassette