- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Vera Z., who was born in Kaunas, Lithuania in 1925. She recalls attending Lithuanian school; Lithuanian friends; Soviet occupation; Lithuanian violence against Jews prior to the arrival of German troops; a Lithuanian neighbor who saved them; her father's death in a mass shooting at the Seventh Fort; ghettoization; hiding her younger sister during round-ups; forced labor; escaping and staying with Lithuanian friends during mass killings; a Jewish policeman saving them from selection; hiding during deportations after warnings from the policeman; smuggling food for her family; a Lithuanian friend giving her her passport which saved her life many times; working on farms posing as a non-Jew; liberation by Soviet troops; returning to Kaunas; learning the ghetto had been burned (her mother and sister had hidden there); assistance from Lithuanian friends; attending university in Moscow; and her career in Kaunas. Ms. Z. notes one son emigrated to the United States; visiting him; her other son and husband remaining in Kaunas; and difficulty deciding whether to emigrate. She discusses spitting on a Lithuanian after the war who had tried to expose her as a Jew; her pervasive memories; and the impossibility of conveying her experiences in a few hours. She shows photographs.
- Author/Creator
- Z., Vera, 1925-
- Published
- New York, N.Y. : A Living Memorial to the Holocaust-Museum of Jewish Heritage, 1992
- Interview Date
- December 6, 1992.
- Locale
- Lithuania
Kaunas
Kaunas (Lithuania)
Moscow (Russia)
- Cite As
- Vera Z. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-2702). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Gorenstein, Gabriel, interviewer.
Atlas, Jeff, interviewer.
