Sonia S. Holocaust testimony (HVT-1361) interviewed by Leo Mogill and Rebecca Fink

Videotape testimony of Sonia S., who was born in Kaunas, Lithuania in 1925, the third of five children. She recalls German invasion; incarceration with her family in the Seventh Fort; a mass killing including her father; transfer with her mother and siblings to the Ninth Fort; release; ghettoization with her younger siblings and mother; smuggling food; hiding her siblings; forced labor; their deportation to an Estonian labor camp; deportation to Auschwitz; a prisoner giving her life-saving advice; learning her mother and siblings had been gassed; recognizing one of her older brothers (she had not known he was alive); slave labor in a munitions factory; learning her brother was in the Sonderkommando (he survived their revolt); the death march in January 1945; train transport to Ravensbrück, then Neustadt; a privileged position in the laundry; liberation; traveling to Łódź; antisemitic violence; illegally traveling to Austria; living in Braunau displaced persons camp; learning her brother was in Italy; their reunion; marriage; her brother's suicide; emigration to the United States; and lack of support from relatives. Mrs. S. discusses her brother's suicide resulting from his experiences in the Sonderkommando; her determination to survive; and her pervasive sense of pain and loss. She shows photographs.