Rena G. Holocaust testimony (HVT-1271) interviewed by Louise Goodman and Ruth Tofler Riesel

Videotape testimony of Rena G., who was born in 1936 in Thessalonikē, Greece. She recalls her family's move to Athens in 1940 due to the German occupation; hiding in a basement; her father's activities in the resistance; posing as non-Jews; extreme hunger; attempting to reach Turkey by boat in 1943; and capture by the Germans. She recounts their interrogation in Moúdhros on Lemnos Island; her father being taken elsewhere; being jailed with her mother and uncle for three months; her mother's influence with the Gestapo commander, resulting in Mrs. G's release from prison to live with a family of German sympathizers; visiting her mother daily; German evacuation and destruction of the village in 1945; reunion with her parents and uncle; their return to Thessalonikē; and her father starting a camp for Jewish children. Mrs. G. tells of attending a Greek American school and winning a Fulbright Scholarship to attend Michigan State University. She notes that her open family became closed and bitter as a result of their war experience.