- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Sophie B., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1913 to a Jewish mother and a non-Jewish father. She recalls a happy childhood; celebrating Christmas as a secular holiday; not observing Jewish customs or seeing herself as Jewish; leaving school at seventeen to work; feeling threatened by the Nuremberg laws; her parents' move to Lower Lusatia with assistance from a non-Jewish friend; her brother's emigration to Italy; engagement to and living with a non-Jew, although their marriage was legally prohibited; the birth of their son in 1938; being horrified at Kristallnacht; leaving her son with her parents for safety after the war began; obtaining documents as a non-Jewish Hungarian with help from an official; working in a Wehrmacht office in Budapest; visiting her parents and son; involvement in the Hungarian resistance; warning Hungarian Jews of the impending German invasion; marrying a Hungarian resistant; German occupation in 1944; her husband's arrest; returning to her parents and son; a futile escape attempt; living in Friedrichshain; liberation by Soviet troops; traveling to Budapest; the birth of her second son; her husband's arrest by the Communists; moving to Berlin; two more marriages; and the births of two more children. Mrs. B. discusses obstacles to Jewish resistance and the diminishment of European culture due to the loss of Jews in the Holocaust. She shows photographs.
- Author/Creator
- B., Sophie, 1913-
- Published
- Potsdam, Germany : Moses Mendelssohn Zentrum für europäisch-jüdische Studien, Universität Potsdam, 1996
- Interview Date
- April 11, May 14, and August 8, 1996.
- Locale
- Germany
Hungary
Berlin (Germany)
Budapest (Hungary)
Lower Lusatia (Germany)
Friedrichshain (Berlin, Germany)
- Cite As
- Sophie B. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3418). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Lezzi, Eva, interviewer.
Leo, Annette, interviewer.
- Notes
-
This testimony is in German.
