Clara P. Holocaust testimony (HVT-982) interviewed by Lisa Kaplan and Pam Goodman,

Videotape testimony of Clara P., who was born in Li︠u︡bomlʹ, Ukraine in 1916, one of six children. She recalls her father's death when she was seven; her family's extreme poverty; working from age fourteen onward; marrying in 1938; her son's birth in 1939; Soviet occupation; German invasion; round-ups and mass murders; ghettoization; a non-Jewish acquaintance bringing them food; hiding during a 1942 aktion when her mother was killed and her son taken; and escaping into the forest with her husband and others. Mrs. P. recounts many experiences from two years of hiding, emphasizing the difficult conditions; attacks by Ukrainians who killed four in their group; liberation by Soviet troops in 1944; returning home with her husband; working for the Soviets; moving to Chełm; escaping to Germany in 1946 after a pogrom in Poland; living in the Wetzlar displaced persons camp; her son's birth; and emigration to the United States in 1949. She discusses her husband's death; remarriage to a Sobibór survivor; her son's reluctance to hear about the war years; and her nightmares and depression. Throughout the testimony Mrs. P. emphasizes the extreme deprivation and hardship she endured and her own disbelief that she survived these conditions.