Maria W. Holocaust testimony (HVT-1714) interviewed by Toby Blum-Dobkin and Michael Alpert

Videotape testimony of Maria W., who was born in Belz, Russia in approximately 1908. She recalls the burning of Belz during World War I; she and her family walking for two months to Vienna; extreme poverty; one brother's emigration to the United States; attending gymnasium; her father's death in 1928; working in a knitting factory; marriage in 1933; working in her husband's knitting factory; their relative affluence; her son's birth; her husband's arrest; a non-Jewish maid who found money her husband had hidden and gave it to her; his release upon promising to leave Austria the next month; being swindled out of much of their money; emigration to London via Zurich and Paris; moving to Bournemouth for their son's health; assistance from a Jewish family with whom they are still friends; bringing the rest of her family out of Austria; and emigration to the United States. Ms. W. discusses childhood visits to Belz and Rava-Russkai︠a︡; her family settling in England and Uruguay; saving a family Torah from a synagogue in Vienna and donating it to her present synagogue; and becoming ill on every postwar visit to Vienna. She shows documents, photographs, and memorabilia.