Esther P. Holocaust testimony (HVT-523) interviewed by Donna Yanowitz

Videotape testimony of Esther P., who was born in approximately 1925, one of ten children. She recounts living in Kolochava, Czechoslovakia (presently Ukraine); attending boarding school in Khust; her father's death in 1938; Hungarian occupation; anti-Jewish restrictions; forced relocation with her mother and four sisters to Sokirnitsa; their deportation to Auschwitz a month later; separation from her mother; efforts to stay together with her sisters; transfer after three months to Stutthof, then Bromberg; slave labor digging ditches; sharing food with her sisters; brutal treatment by guards and passing Hitler Youth; switching places with her sister who was assigned to a punishment barrack; hospitalization; a death march; abandonment by the guards; liberation by Soviet troops; transfer to Bydgoszcz, then Częstochowa; returning to Czechoslovakia; reunion with her brother; staying with her sister who was hospitalized in Romania; returning to Prague; living with her sisters in Ústí nad Labem; marriage; her son's birth; emigration to Canada; and assisting her sisters emigrate to North America. Ms. P. discusses the importance of her faith, hope, and remaining with her sisters to her survival; nightmares and health problems resulting from her experiences; and not sharing her story with her children because she always cried, which upset them.