- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Pearl P., a twin, who was born in Chynadiyovo, Czechoslovakia in 1921, the youngest of ten children. She recounts most of her siblings had left home before she was born; attending public school and teacher's college; her mother's death in 1942; forced relocation to a brickyard in 1944; non-Jewish neighbors bringing them food; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; selection as twins; the trauma of learning about gassings and crematoria; working one week stacking corpses; living in a hospital; injections that made them ill, daily blood drawings, and other "experiments" by Josef Mengele and his staff; women prisoners killing their newborns to avoid being gassed; observing their brother in a work detail; receiving visits and extra food from him; liquidation of the Zigeunerlager (Gypsy Lager), it abutted their barrack; the death march in January 1945; arrival at Ravensbrück; a death march in April; abandonment by their guards; encountering U.S. troops; returning home; hearing from siblings in Mexico and the U.S.; finishing her education; teaching in a Czech town; reunions with several brothers; and emigration to the United States. Mrs. P. discusses numbing herself to corpses, but pervasive memories of them; Mengele's treatment of "his twins"; and her siblings' experiences. She shows photographs.
- Author/Creator
- P., Pearl, 1921-
- Published
- Milwaukee, Wis. : Generation After of Milwaukee, 1994
- Interview Date
- May 2, 1994.
- Locale
- Czechoslovakia
Chynadiĭovo (Ukraine)
- Cite As
- Pearl P. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3027). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Strick, George, interviewer.
Hoffman, Sanford, interviewer.
- Notes
-
Photocopies of documents and other written material are available in the repository.
