- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Helga P., who was born in Charlottenburg, Germany in January 1939, the illegitimate child of a Jewish father, whom she never knew, and a half-Jewish mother. She recounts staying in a children's home in Eberswalde until the war began in September; living with her mother, uncle, and grandparents in Berlin; living briefly with her mother in Zedlitz; her Jewish grandmother hiding during Gestapo raids; her Protestant grandfather's efforts to save them; living in Brieselang; liberation by Soviet troops; resuming school; returning to Berlin; attending Jewish and Protestant services; her mother's marriage in 1955; emigration to the United States in 1961; marriage; visiting her mother annually; and her husband's death in 1975. Ms. P. discusses her close relationship with her grandparents; her grandfather's courage and resourcefulness in saving them; the loss of most of her grandmother's family in the Holocaust; her mother informing her that her father had been shot, but her reluctance to say more; her own reluctance to question her mother and her own children not understanding that; and fears resulting from wartime bombings. She shows photographs.
- Author/Creator
- P., Helga, 1939-
- Published
- Potsdam, Germany : Moses Mendelssohn Zentrum für europäisch-jüdische Studien, Universität Potsdam, 1995
- Interview Date
- November 10, 1995.
- Locale
- Germany
Charlottenburg (Berlin, Germany)
Eberswalde (Germany)
Breiselang (Germany)
Zedlitz (Germany)
- Cite As
- Helga P. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3409). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Miltenberger, Sonja, interviewer.
Lezzi, Eva, interviewer.
- Notes
-
This testimony is in German.
