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Brenda H. Holocaust testimony (HVT-877) interviewed by Gitta Fajerstein and Lee Blum,

Oral History | Fortunoff Collection ID: HVT-877

Videotape testimony of Brenda H., who was born in Horodenka, Poland in 1926. She recalls her mother's death in childbirth; antisemitic incidents; Soviet occupation in 1939; her oldest brother's draft; Hungarian, then German occupation in 1941; ghettoization; her father's membership on the Judenrat; forced labor; hiding with her siblings during a mass killing in December 1941 during which her father and grandparents were murdered; hiding in a bunker during a second mass killing; the ghetto's liquidation; being hidden with her sister and younger brother by her older brothers and uncle; being hidden on a farm by Russians; hiding in a bunker, then in a cave; assistance from a non-Jew; her younger brother's and sister's deaths from starvation; and liberation by Soviet troops in March 1944. Mrs. H. describes fleeing to Chernivt︠s︡i with her brothers; traveling to Germany with assistance from Beriḥah; marriage in the Dieburg displaced persons camp; her son's birth; and emigration to the United States in 1949. She eloquently discusses their state of mind during the war; her inability to understand such cruelty; not taking revenge; and the constant pain of her memories which also impacts her children. She reads a poem written while in hiding.

Author/Creator
H., Brenda, 1926-
Published
Wilmette, Ill. : Holocaust Education Foundation, 1991
Interview Date
October 13, 1991.
Locale
Ukraine
Horodenka
Poland
Horodenka (Ukraine)
Chernivt︠s︡i (Ukraine)
Language
English
Copies
2 copies: 3/4 in. master; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
Cite As
Brenda H. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-877). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
 
View in Yale University Library Catalog: http://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/1111969
Record last modified: 2018-05-29 11:58:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/hvt1111969