Advanced Search

Learn About The Holocaust

Special Collections

My Saved Research

Login

Register

Help

Skip to main content

Betty R. Holocaust testimony (HVT-1002) interviewed by Elsa Roth and Robbie Friedland,

Oral History | Fortunoff Collection ID: HVT-1002

Videotape testimony of Betty R., who was born in Kielce, Poland. She recalls her family's active membership in revisionist Zionist organizations; an affluent childhood; German invasion when she was thirteen; her father and one brother fleeing to the Soviet zone (her father perished); public humiliation of Jews; forced labor; ghettoization; marriage; a mass killing of children; deportation with her husband to Pionki; slave labor in an ammunition factory; a public hanging; escaping with her husband; hiding in the woods; arrest; deportation to Oranienburg; her transfer to Ravensbrück; efforts to maintain morale; liberation by the Swedish Red Cross; transfer to Sweden; reunion with her brother; joining her husband illegally in Salzburg via Kraków and emigration to the United States. Mrs R. discusses depression resulting from her experiences; her sense of anger and bitterness as a survivor; and her wish that people understand the impossible circumstances imposed upon Jews and that they did not "go to death like sheep."

Author/Creator
R., Betty.
Published
Wilmette, Ill. : Holocaust Education Foundation, 1987
Interview Date
March 29, 1987.
Locale
Poland
Kielce
Kielce (Poland)
Sweden
Kraków (Poland)
Salzburg (Austria)
Language
English
Copies
2 copies: 3/4 in. master; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
Cite As
Betty R. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-1002). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
 
View in Yale University Library Catalog: http://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/1108245
Record last modified: 2018-05-29 11:46:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/hvt1108245