- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Aviva U., who was born in Warsaw, Poland after her father's death. She recalls attending a Polish school, the only Jew in a quota; staying with her grandparents in Otwock; German invasion; returning to Warsaw; ghettoization; attending school; escaping a mass killing when her mother's body knocked her down and she feigned death; obtaining false papers from her mother's friend; escaping from the ghetto; posing as a Russian refugee; exposure by a Jew; denying her Judaism under torture; a priest attesting she was Catholic; transport to Germany for forced labor; working for a village mayor from 1943 to 1945; arrival of Soviet troops; joining the Soviet army to take revenge; working as a translator in Berlin; identifying collaborators who were immediately hung; deserting; returning to Warsaw and Otwock; returning to Germany due to Polish antisemitism; suffering from mental illness; studying in Munich; marriage; her daughter's birth; and their emigration to Israel in 1948. Mrs. U. discusses difficulties having her experiences heard in Israel; problematic relations with her daughter; the meaning of revenge in her life; and contemporary Israeli politics. She notes only now in Israel is the individual Holocaust experience valued apart from the collective Jewish experience.
- Author/Creator
- U., Aviva.
- Published
- Ramat Aviv, Israel : Beth Hatefutsoth, Nahum Goldman Museum of the Jewish Diaspora, 1984
- Interview Date
- August 31, 1984.
- Locale
- Poland
Warsaw
Germany
Warsaw (Poland)
Otwock (Poland)
Berlin (Germany)
Munich (Germany)
Israel
- Cite As
- Aviva U. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-1077). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Beyrak, Nathan, interviewer.
Rozner, Raphael, interviewer.
- Notes
-
This testimony is in Hebrew.
