Celina R. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3131) interviewed by Dana L. Kline and Susan Millen

Videotape testimony of Celina R., who was born in Kraków, Poland in 1929. She recalls the outbreak of war; fleeing with her family to Lv́iv; Soviet occupation; returning to Kraków in December 1939; fleeing to Wieliczka to escape ghettoization; her father's deportation and subsequent death; forced relocation with her mother and brother to the Kraków ghetto in 1943, then to Płaszów in March; her brother's deportation with the children's transport (she never saw him again); working with her mother in an upholstery shop; hiding during Goeth's visit; deportation with her mother to Auschwitz; working in an airplane factory in Kratzau; receiving food from a German woman; arranging to work the same shift as her mother; and liberation by Soviet troops on May 8, 1945. Mrs. R. describes recuperating with her mother in Chrastava; returning to Kraków; antisemitic incidents; fleeing with her mother to Bad Ischl; living in a displaced persons camp; marriage; and emigration with her mother and husband from Vienna to the United States. She discusses the importance of her mother to their survival; struggles to earn a living and build a family; a recent trip with her husband to Poland; and her reluctance to share her experience with her son.