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Leah B. Holocaust testimony (HVT-369) interviewed by Toby Lewis,

Oral History | Fortunoff Collection ID: HVT-369

Videotape testimony of Leah B., who was born in Jarosław, Poland in approximately 1926. She describes her family's candy business; attending a private Hebrew school; attending Zionist summer camps; German invasion; she and her sister leaving her parents (she never saw them again); transfer with a group of Polish girls to a labor camp via Kraków; working in a radio factory; suspicious Ukrainians denouncing them; transfer to a prison in Weimar; interrogation; transfer to Auschwitz in February 1943; transfer to Birkenau; a brutal beating by a Jewish inmate for leaving the barracks to volunteer for a job; organizing her sister's release from the camp hospital; transfer to Auschwitz; work in a munitions factory; public hanging of prisoners who had blown up a crematorium; a death march in January; escaping in a group; hiding in a barn; a Catholic priest bringing them food; the priest hiding them; liberation by Soviet troops; traveling to Katowice; her marriage in 1946; returning briefly to Jarosław; traveling to a displaced persons camp in Germany; and emigrating to the United States with assistance from the Joint. Ms. B. mentions suffering from nightmares, nervousness, and headaches as a result of her experiences; and attributes her survival to her sister and luck.

Author/Creator
B., Leah, 1926?-
Published
Cleveland, Ohio : National Council of Jewish Women, Holocaust Archive Project, 1984
Interview Date
October 30, 1984.
Locale
Poland
Jarosław (Poland)
Kraków (Poland)
Weimar (Thuringia, Germany)
Katowice (Poland)
Language
English
Copies
2 copies: 3/4 in. dub; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
Cite As
Leah B. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-369). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.