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Celia R. Holocaust testimony (HVT-497) interviewed by Donna Yanowitz,

Oral History | Fortunoff Collection ID: HVT-497

Videotape testimony of Celia R., who was born in Czechoslovakia in approximately 1921, one of ten children. She recounts her family's affluence; moving to Ti︠a︡chiv; participating in Mizrachi; Hungarian occupation; moving to work in her sister's store; moving the store to Ti︠a︡chiv; traveling to Budapest on business; German invasion; returning home; ghettoization; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; hospitalization; transfer to Reichenbach; slave labor in a factory; treatment by a Russian doctor; Allied bombings; a death march to Porta Westfalica; transfer four weeks later to Salzwedel; liberation by United States troops; taking food and clothing from homes in Salzwedel; hospitalization; returning home via Teplice Sanov; recovering buried family valuables; traveling to Budapest; returning home several times searching for her brother; learning he had died of starvation; traveling to Germany; living in Windsheim displaced persons camp; assistance from UNRRA; traveling illegally to Milan, then Cremona; living on a Mizrachi kibbutz; illegal emigration to Palestine aboard the Exodus; interdiction by the British; incarceration on Cyprus for more than a year; release after Israel's independence; living in Tel Aviv; reunion with a cousin; marriage; her son's birth; and emigration to the United States. Ms. R. notes her children's interest in her experiences. She shows photographs.

Author/Creator
R., Celia, 1921?-
Published
Cleveland, Ohio : National Council of Jewish Women, Holocaust Archive Project, 1984
Interview Date
October 30, 1984.
Locale
Ukraine
Ti︠a︡chiv
Czechoslovakia
Ti︠a︡chiv (Ukraine)
Budapest (Hungary)
Salzwedel (Germany)
Teplice (Czech Republic)
Milan (Italy)
Cremona (Italy)
Palestine
Cyprus
Tel Aviv (Israel)
Language
English
Copies
2 copies: 3/4 in. dub; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
Cite As
Celia R. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-497). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.