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Lauryann F. Holocaust testimony (HVT-1221) interviewed by Nancy Kislin and Bernard Weinstein,

Oral History | Fortunoff Collection ID: HVT-1221

Videotape testimony of Lauryann F., who was born in Strasbourg, France, in 1928, an only child. She recalls her family's orthodoxy; visits to Paris; moving to join her mother's family in Gyulaháza, Hungary; an idyllic childhood; attending Catholic school; harassment by the Arrow Cross beginning in 1938; moving to IV. Kerület, a Budapest suburb; German invasion in March 1944; forced relocation to Jewish-designated housing; attending a private art school; declining a rescue offer by a priest in order to remain with her parents; round-up to a brick factory; deportation to Auschwitz; separation from her parents (she never saw them again); friendship with another girl, with whom she remained throughout the camps; the pervasive stench; transfer to Nuremberg; slave labor in a Siemens factory; Allied bombings; transfer to Czechoslovakia; liberation by Yugoslav partisans, then United States troops; her friend's death the next day; traveling to Budapest; the trauma of avoiding rape by Soviet soldiers en route; moving with a cousin to Mád; contact from her uncle in Paris through the Red Cross; joining him in 1946; attending art school; emigration to the United States in 1950; marriage; and the births of two daughters. Ms. F. discusses numbing herself and never making eye contact with camp officials as a survival strategy; not sharing her experiences, even with her husband and children; nightmares due to her experiences; validating that her experiences were true upon meeting a woman who had been in the same camps; and an emotional visit to her town in Hungary.

Author/Creator
F., Lauryann, 1928-
Published
Union, N.J. : Kean College Oral Testimonies Project, 1988
Interview Date
April 2, 1988 and April 14, 1988.
Locale
France
Strasbourg (France)
Paris (France)
Gyulaháza (Hungary)
Budapest (Hungary)
IV. Kerület (Budapest, Hungary)
Mád (Hungary)
Language
English
Copies
4 copies: 3/4 in. dub; Betacam SP restoration master; Betacam SP restoration submaster; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
Cite As
Lauryann F. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-1221). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
 
View in Yale University Library Catalog: http://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/4294858
Record last modified: 2018-05-30 11:33:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/hvt4294858