Louise J. Holocaust testimony (HVT-1142) interviewed by Tina Rauch and Faye Rozmaryn

Videotape testimony of Louise J., who was born in Kraków, Poland in 1925. She recalls a happy childhood in an affluent family; growing antisemitism in the late 1930s; German invasion; anti-Jewish measures; ghettoization; hiding during round-ups, having been warned through her father's connections with the Judenrat; transfer to Płaszów in March 1943; separation from her father and brother; slave labor in an ammunition factory; her mother's deportation (she never saw her again); random killings and beatings by the Kommandant, Amon Goeth; public hangings; working briefly in Wieliczka with her father (she never saw him again); deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau in 1944; hiding during selections; transfer to an ammunition factory in Oederan; evacuation to Terezín in April 1945; and liberation by Soviet troops on May 8. Mrs. J. recounts reunion with her brother in Terezín; nursing him when he had typhus; living in Landsberg displaced persons camp; working for UNRRA; marriage in 1947; her daughter's birth in 1949; and their emigration to the United States. Mrs. J. emphasizes the overwhelming effects of starvation.