- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Bela Y., who was born in Thessalonikē, Greece in 1924, the youngest of ten children. She recounts her family's orthodoxy and affluence; ghettoization; transfer to the Baron de Hirsch quarter; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; separation from her family; deaths from starvation and disease; slave labor; a German guard twice saving her from selection; fellow prisoners sharing extra food; briefly encountering a brother; a guard injuring her when she insulted him; smuggling water to a cousin; sorting shoes of the murdered Jews; taking valuables hidden in the shoes to trade for food; transfer to the Union Kommando munitions factory; interrogation after prisoner destruction of a crematorium; a severe beating for smuggling notes; assistance from other prisoners; a death march to Wrocław; helping a friend from Thessalonikē; train transfer to Ravensbrück (many died en route); receiving Red Cross packages; becoming very ill; removal of a kidney in a nearby hospital; liberation by United States troops; traveling to Berlin; Soviet soldiers raping a friend; returning home in December; Soviets finding SS among them en route and former prisoners beating the SS; antisemitic remarks by a man who had her family's property; emigration to Israel; many surgeries resulting from removal of her kidney during the war; and eventually having children.
- Author/Creator
- Y., Bela, 1924-
- Published
- Tel Aviv, Israel : Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1993
- Interview Date
- July 5, 1993.
- Locale
- Greece
Thessalonikē
Thessalonikē (Greece)
Wrocław (Poland)
Berlin (Germany)
- Cite As
- Bela Y. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3552). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Notes
-
This testimony is in Hebrew.
