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Doris W. Holocaust testimony (HVT-1410) interviewed by Dana L. Kline and Frances Proctor Cohen,

Oral History | Fortunoff Collection ID: HVT-1410

Videotape testimony of Doris W., who was born in Teplice-Šanov, Czechoslovakia in 1925, the only child of an affluent family. She recounts her parents' vote for Sudetenland to join Germany in 1933; moving to Prague after German occupation in 1938; attending an English school; German invasion; deportation with her parents to Terezín; harsh conditions; starvation; her mother's hospitalization and surgery; her own work with children; her hospitalization with tuberculosis and anemia; meeting her future husband; transport with her parents to Auschwitz; learning about 'the chimneys'; and selection and transfer out of the family camp (she never saw her parents again). Mrs. W. remembers trying to hide pregnant women during appells; volunteering to go to Christianstadt due to the unbearable conditions in Auschwitz; slave labor cutting trees; a German guard's assistance; working in a chemical factory; the importance of her relationship with her friend; escape from a death march in 1945; capture and incarceration in Gleiwitz; liberation; returning to Prague; being hospitalized for one year with tuberculosis; a visit from her cousin who was in the United States Army; recuperation in Switzerland; returning to Prague; marriage; working in a bookstore; the birth of her children; and emigration to the United States after the Soviet intervention in 1968, with assistance from her cousin.

Author/Creator
W., Doris, 1925-
Published
New Haven, Conn. : Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1990
Interview Date
December 5, 1990.
Locale
Czechoslovakia
Sudetenland
Teplice (Czech Republic)
Prague (Czech Republic)
Switzerland
Language
English
Copies
3 copies: 3/4 in. master; 3/4 in. dub; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
Cite As
Doris W. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-1410). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
 
View in Yale University Library Catalog: http://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/1083415
Record last modified: 2018-05-29 11:46:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/hvt1083415