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Hertha B. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3716) interviewed by Matthias Cohn and Irene Diekmann,

Oral History | Fortunoff Collection ID: HVT-3716

Videotape testimony of Hertha B., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1920. She recounts her parents' strong German identity; her father's service in World War I; studying with Regina Jonas, a female rabbi; expulsion from school in 1936 due to anti-Jewish laws; attending a Jewish seminary to train as a kindergarten teacher; employment in a children's camp near Schmiedeberg (presently Kowary, Poland) and Hirschberg (presently Jelenia Góra); locals breaking all the windows on Kristallnacht; returning with the children to Berlin; preparing for emigration to Palestine with a group in Havelberg; meeting her husband; marriage; a grueling ship journey to illegally emigrate to Palestine in October 1939; arrival in January 1940 after interception by the British; a six-month incarceration in ʻAtlit; living on a kibbutz; settling near Haifa; receiving a letter from her parents in October 1940 (she never heard from them again); her son's birth; her husband's military service in the 1948 and 1956 wars; and returning to Berlin in 1957. Ms. B. discusses feeling at home in Berlin; identifying herself as a Jew; learning her parents had been deported to Theresienstadt; and the deaths of all her relatives but one during the Holocaust. She shows photographs.

Author/Creator
B., Hertha, 1920-
Published
Potsdam, Germany : Moses Mendelssohn Zentrum für europäisch-jüdische Studien,Universität Potsdam, 1996
Interview Date
May 22, 1996.
Locale
Germany
Berlin (Germany)
Jelenia Góra (Poland)
Kowary (Jelenia Góra, Poland)
Havelberg (Germany)
Palestine
ʻAtlit (Israel)
Language
German
Copies
2 copies: Betacam SP dub; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
Cite As
Hertha B. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3716). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
 
View in Yale University Library Catalog: http://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/4298791
Record last modified: 2018-05-29 11:47:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/hvt4298791