Rose K. Holocaust testimony (HVT-355) interviewed by Leatrice Rabinsky

Videotape testimony of Rose K., who was born in Sosnowiec, Poland in approximately 1930, the youngest of seven children. She recounts her family's orthodoxy; cordial relations with non-Jews; an anti-Jewish boycott, including her father's store; German invasion; her family's attempt to flee; returning when overtaken by Germans; Germans murdering her brother, uncle, and cousin; her sisters' deportation; receiving their postcards from Oberaltstadt; a public hanging; forced factory labor; she, her parents, and one sister escaping from a round-up; ghettoization; the Judenrat organizing plots for farming; assisting at a Noʻar ha-Tsiyoni plot; hiding in a bunker during round-ups; her father encouraging her to volunteer for Oberaltstadt; transfer there in June 1943; reunion with her two sisters; slave labor in a textile factory; an organized effort to sabotage the work; a prisoner nurse saving her from deportation; liberation by Soviet troops in May 1945; being offered the opportunity to kill or injure a camp official, but merely shaving her hair; returning to Sosnowiec; learning her parents, siblings, and large extended family had perished; antisemitic harassment; living in an orphanage; she and her sisters smuggling themselves to Germany; emigration to the United States in September 1947; assistance from UNRRA and the Joint; and marriage to a survivor in 1951. Ms. K. discusses organization of camp and ghetto life; never losing her faith in God or belief she would survive; attending international survivor gatherings; and sharing her story with her children and in schools. She shows photographs and her autobiographical manuscript.