Shirley K. Holocaust testimony (HVT-983) interviewed by Kathy Strochlic and Pam Goodman

Videotape testimony of Shirley K., who was born in Oshmyany, Poland (presently Belarus) in 1930. She recalls Soviet occupation; German invasion; the murder of all Jewish men including her father; ghettoization; hiding cousins; aktions; and deportation to a labor camp with her mother, sister, and other relatives in 1942. Mrs. K. recounts slave labor in Poniviez; selection of her grandmother, sister, and cousins (she never saw them again); several transfers ending at Stutthof; learning of the gas chamber; constant brutalization; a guard who allowed her to join her mother after they were separated; transport to a slave labor camp; escape from a death march in 1944; hiding, then finding domestic work posing as Poles; smuggling food to two cousins; and liberation by Soviet troops. She describes working in a Soviet hospital in Bydgoszcz; moving to Łódź; leaving school due to antisemitism; relocating to displaced persons camps including Eschwege; emigration to New York in 1949; her mother's remarriage; and her marriage in 1951. She discusses the importance of having been with her mother throughout the war; reluctance to discuss her experiences; and her children's encouragement to record her testimony.