Description
Object description
Polish Jewish civilian in Mielec, Poland, 9/1939-3/1942; inmate in Kraków Ghetto, Poland, 4/1942-10/1942; inmate in Kraków-Plaszów and Auschwitz II-Birkenau Concentration Camps, Poland, 10/1942-10/1944 and Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, Germany, 10/1944-4/1945
Content description
REEL 1 Background in Mielec, Poland, 1925-1939: family; degree of anti-Semitism in pre-war Poland; German invasion of Poland, 9/1939. Aspects of period as civilian in Mielec, Poland, 9/1939-3/1942: German atrocities against town's Jewish population, 9/1939; disappearance of brother; restrictions imposed on Jewish community; food shortages; anti-Semitism amongst Polish population; confiscation of valuables from Jewish homes. Aspects of deportation from Mielec, Poland, 3/1942-4/1942: rounding up of Jewish community in town centre of Mielec, 9/3/1942; German shooting of old, ill and disabled; journey via Lublin to Majdan Tartarski Ghetto; accommodation in Majdan Tartarski Ghetto; travelling with sister back to Mielec under false documents; last correspondence with family prior to liquidation of Majdan Tartarski Ghetto, 4/1942. Aspects of period as inmate in Kraków Ghetto, Poland, 4/1942-10/1942: move into ghetto.
REEL 2 Continues: work in shoe workshop; rumours of liquidation of ghetto. Recollections of period as inmate in Kraków-Plaszów Concentration Camp, Poland, 10/1942-7/1944: move into camp; construction of camp on site of Jewish cemetery; atrocities committed by guards; helping in construction of barracks; work in shoe workshop; behaviour of camp commandant, Amon Goeth; how children were taken care of; fate of female inmates abused by guards; sight of children being taken away from mothers; hospitalisation for tuberculosis. Recollections of period as inmate in Auschwitz II-Birkenau Concentration Camp, Poland, 7/1944-10/1944: train journey to camp; processing of inmates on arrival; accommodation in barracks; allocation to barrack cleaning duties.
REEL 3 Continues: comparison between Auschwitz II-Birkenau and Kraków-Plaszów Concentration Camps; attitude towards tattooing; prior knowledge of gas chambers; memories of Dr Josef Mengele; opinion of camp guards; relationship with sister Sarah; impact of starvation on physical condition; inmates' fear of gas chambers. Aspects of period as inmate in Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, Germany, 10/1944-4/1945: march from town of Bergen to camp, 10/1944; work; behaviour of guards; conditions and their deterioration by 4/1945. Recollections of period in barracks at Bergen, Germany, 1945-1947: liberation and death of sister, 4/1945; contracting typhoid; attitude towards liberators; allocation of accommodation in former army barracks; obtaining information on family from Polish soldier from her home town; meeting husband.
REEL 4 Continues: story of tracing her brothers; question of effects of experience on religion faith; conditions in camp after war; emigration of brothers to Palestine; psychological and physical effects of captivity during Second World War. Aspects of emigration to GB from 1947: emigration to GB, 9/1947; learning English language; initial difficulties experienced on arrival in GB; establishment of dressmaking business.
REEL 5 Continues: Reflections on Holocaust experiences: lack of opportunity to talk of experiences; post-war visit to Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in Czechoslovakia; attitude towards visiting Poland; attitude towards Germans and return to site of Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in Germany for 50th anniversary of liberation; nature of pension; importance of Holocaust centre; obtaining last photograph of family; murder of husband's sister in pogrom in Poland, 1945; invitation to Jews to return to Poland, 1990s; attitude towards work of Oskar Schindler and opinion of film 'Schlindler's List' (1993).