- Summary
- 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)
- Cite As
- Lauryann F. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-1221). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Weinstein, Bernard, interviewer.
Kislin, Nancy, interviewer.
