- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Helen D., who was born in a town near Khust, Czechoslovakia in 1920. She recounts attending public school; Hungarian occupation; anti-Jewish restrictions; ghettoization; transfer to Melʹnytsya-Podilʹsʹka; forced labor cleaning streets; working as a dressmaker; deportation of her mother and five sisters to Auschwitz (none returned); remaining with her father, brother, and another sister; transfer to Borșa; capture of her brother and father (she never saw them again); escaping with her sister from the ghetto in September 1943; hiding in a forest, then briefly with a Polish woman; building two bunkers to house twenty-five Jews each; sharing food; one bunker's discovery, and the other's collapse in 1944, causing many deaths, including her sister; hiding in a barn; liberation by Soviet troops; escaping to Chernivt︠s︡i to avoid conscription for forced labor; traveling to Prague in May 1945; serving as a nurse in the Czech army; moving to Teplice in October; opening a dressmaking shop; contacting an uncle in New York via the Red Cross; marriage to a survivor in May 1946; receiving an affidavit from her uncle; traveling illegally to Germany; living in a displaced persons camp near Vienna; and emigration to Montréal, then to the United States in October 1953.
- Author/Creator
- D., Helen, 1920-
- Published
- Cleveland, Ohio : National Council of Jewish Women, Holocaust Archive Project, 1984
- Interview Date
- January 15, 1984.
- Locale
- Czechoslovakia
Melʹnytsya-Podilʹsʹka (Ternopilʹsʹka oblastʹ, Ukraine)
Borșa (Baia Mare, Romania)
Chernivt︠s︡i (Ukraine)
Prague (Czech Republic)
Teplice (Czech Republic)
Montréal (Québec)
- Cite As
- Helen D. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-519). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
