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Judith S. Holocaust testimony (HVT-2545) interviewed by Joni-Sue Blinderman,

Oral History | Fortunoff Collection ID: HVT-2545

Videotape testimony of Judith S., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1938. She tells of sailing with her parents and grandfather on the St. Louis in May 1939; being refused landing permission in Cuba; disembarkation in Antwerp; living in a French town on the Spanish border; friendship with their landlady; incarceration in Gurs in 1942; hysteria when she was separated from her parents (she never saw them again); placement with the landlady (her grandfather was still there, but died shortly thereafter); attending school and church; being protected by the villagers (they knew she was Jewish); a loving relationship with the landlady; war's end; the traumatic separation from the landlady, her foster mother in Paris; living in an OSE camp; emigration to the United States in 1946 to join her uncle's family; their insistence that she abandon the church and cut ties with her foster mother in France; and marriage in 1958. Mrs. S. discusses her omnipresent sense of danger during wartime; difficulties adjusting to her uncle's orthodoxy and severing communications with her foster mother; emotional difficulties with issues of abandonment and separation; raising her children religiously; her own strong religious faith; and learning that her foster mother had hidden other Jews.

Author/Creator
S., Judith, 1938-
Published
New York, N.Y. : Living Memorial to the Holocaust-Museum of Jewish Heritage, 1993
Interview Date
January 20, 1993.
Locale
Berlin (Germany)
Germany
Antwerp (Belgium)
Paris (France)
Language
English
Copies
2 copies: 3/4 in. dub; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
Cite As
Judith S. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2545). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.