- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Rena B., who was born in Lv́ov, Poland in 1925. She recounts an affluent childhood; Soviet occupation; German invasion in June 1941; round-ups and mass killings, including her uncle and sister; forced labor; ghettoization; public hangings; working outside the ghetto; her father's death; purchasing false papers; leaving with her mother for work and not returning; a non-Jew taking them to his aunt in Warsaw; feeling they had come from hell into heaven seeing people living normally; observing the Warsaw ghetto burning from afar; hiding with another non-Jew in Jelonki; being joined by other Jews including her future husband; her mother obtaining funds from Armia Ludowa; liberation by Soviet troops; traveling to Siedlce, Lublin, then Kraków; continuing to use her false name due to antisemitism; living in a displaced persons camp near Munich; marriage; separation from her husband; her son's birth; emigration to the United States; assistance from HIAS; remarriage; and her daughter's birth. Mrs. B. discusses the trauma of her sister's death; regrets that she could not save her cousin when they escaped; feeling for many years that her war experiences were unreal; her mother's delusions resulting from the war; and youthful aspirations to be an opera singer. She shows photographs.
- Author/Creator
- B., Rena, 1925-
- Published
- New York, N.Y. : A Living Memorial to the Holocaust-Museum of Jewish Heritage, 1990
- Interview Date
- November 6, 1990.
- Locale
- Ukraine
Lv́iv
Lʹviv (Ukraine)
Warsaw (Poland)
Jelonki (Warsaw, Poland)
Poland
Siedlce (Poland)
Lublin (Poland)
Kraków (Poland)
Munich (Germany)
- Cite As
- Rena B. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-1735). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Schiff, Gabriele, interviewer.
