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Paja L. Holocaust testimony (HVT-1406) interviewed by Abraham Huberman,

Oral History | Fortunoff Collection ID: HVT-1406

Videotape testimony of Paja L., who was born in Vilna, Poland in 1921. Ms. L. remembers working in a kindergarten; Soviet occupation; Lithuanian independence; German invasion; her father being seized from the street; anti-Jewish restrictions; ghettoization; moving into a friend's residence in the designated area; continuing to work with children; food shortages; joining a partisan group; meetings in cafes, which included literary talks by Abraham Sutzkever and Szmerke Kaczerginski; a friend offering to pretend she was his wife to save her from selection; remaining with her mother rather than leaving with partisans; their deportation to Kaiserwald; slave labor in a munitions factory; a Latvian woman bringing her extra food; singing to raise their spirits; transfer a year later to a farm; assistance from Polish civilian workers; return to the camp; a death march in January 1945; escaping with two friends; a German woman briefly sheltering them; recapture; a beating resulting in a permanent injury; liberation by Soviet troops; hospitalization in Gdańsk, then Moscow, traveling to Vilna, then to Łódź; working with the Bund; marriage; traveling to Warsaw, then Paris in 1948; and emigration to Argentina in 1949. Ms. L. emphasizes Jewish resistance, both individual and in partisan units.

Author/Creator
L., Paja, 1921-
Published
Buenos Aires, Argentina : Fundacion "Memoria del Holocausto", 1990
Interview Date
October 19, 1990.
Locale
Lithuania
Vilnius
Vilnius (Lithuania)
Poland
Vilna (Poland)
Gdańsk (Poland)
Moscow (Russia)
Warsaw (Poland)
Paris (France)
Łódź (Poland)
Language
Yiddish
Copies
2 copies: 3/4 in. dub; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
Cite As
Paja L. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-1406). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.