- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Frieda K., who was born in Thessalonikē, Greece in 1921, one of five children. She recounts her family's affluence; cordial relations with non-Jews; attending an Alliance Israélite Universelle school; her family's friendship with Zvi Koretz, the chief rabbi; one sister's emigration to Israel in 1935; Italian occupation; her brother's military draft; German invasion; anti-Jewish restrictions; assistance from a German soldier assigned to live with them; her brother's escape (she never saw him again); ghettoization; round-up to the Baron de Hirsch area; separation from another brother; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau in April 1943; separation from her parents; a privileged position as a translator in Canada Kommando; smuggling food and shoes to her sister in another block; assistance from Mala Zimetbaum when she was ill; hospitalization; depression upon learning her sister had been killed; a German prisoner protecting her from selection; kapos giving her extra food; the pervasive odor of burning flesh; Mala Zimetbaum's suicide before she was to be publicly hanged (she had escaped); fasting on Yom Kippur; a death march to Gliwice in January 1945; train transfer to Ravensbrück, then Neustadt-Glewe; trading jewelry from the Canada Kommando for food; Allied bombings; liberation by United States troops; arrival of Soviet soldiers; traveling to Nienburg, Leese, and Kevelaer displaced persons camp; transfer to Brussels; assistance from former neighbors and relatives in Antwerp; returning home via Athens; contact with her siblings in Israel; assistance from the Joint; her brother-in-law visiting from Israel; illegal emigration by ship to Palestine; interdiction by the British; brief incarceration; her relatives providing care and nurturing; marriage; and the births of two daughters. Ms. K. discusses considering suicide in Birkenau; status and relations among prisoner groups; and continuing nightmares and anxiety resulting from her experiences. Ms. K. shows photographs and sings songs.
- Author/Creator
- K., Frieda, 1921-
- Published
- Tel Aviv, Israel : Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1993
- Interview Date
- April 29, 1993.
- Locale
- Greece
Thessalonikē
Thessalonikē (Greece)
Athens (Greece)
Gliwice (Poland)
Lüneburg (Germany)
Nienburg (Lower Saxony, Germany)
Leese (Lemgo, Germany)
Brussels (Belgium)
Antwerp (Belgium)
Palestine
- Cite As
- Frieda K. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3539). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Notes
-
This testimony is in Hebrew.
