- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Esther J., who was born in Wieluń, Poland in 1918. Mrs. J. recalls her close family of nine children; their religious observances; antisemitism after 1933; her engagement; her father's death immediately before the war; her fiance serving in the Polish army; German invasion in September 1939; fleeing with her family to join her fiance in the Soviet zone; and returning home to find their estate looted by Poles. She describes her family being fingerprinted by the Gestapo; leaving for Łódź with her fiance and mother; marriage; fleeing to Kovelʹ in the Soviet zone; transport to Siberia with other family members; conditions of severe physical deprivation; her son's birth in September 1940; living in several places, including Kazakhstan; her daughter's birth in 1946; having no knowledge of events in Europe during this time; and continuing observance of Jewish holidays. Mrs. J. tells of being allowed to return to Poland in April 1946; learning that most of their families had perished and of her brother's murder by Poles when he returned to their estate after the war; fleeing to the western zone with the help of Beriḥah; staying in displaced persons camps; and emigration to the United States in 1951.
- Author/Creator
- J., Esther, 1918-
- Published
- Ventnor, N.J. : Federation of Jewish Agencies of Atlantic County/Stockton State College, Holocaust Oral History Project, 1989
- Interview Date
- October 26, 1989.
- Locale
- Wieluń (Łódź, Poland)
Poland
Siberia (Russia)
Kovelʹ (Ukraine)
Kazakhstan
- Cite As
- Esther J. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-1400). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Morris, Susan, interviewer.
Tannenbaum, Elaine, interviewer.
