Lea Z. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3801)

Videotape testimony of Lea Z., who was born in Karlovac, Yugoslavia (presently Croatia) in 1932. She recounts her family's affluence; visiting Zagreb; cordial relations with non-Jews; her father's arrest as a hostage by the Ustaša; bringing him food; his transfer to Zagreb (he was executed in retaliation for a partisan attack, but her mother did not tell her); her landlord's mother-in-law taking her to Kranj; her mother's arrival three weeks later, then her grandmother's; hearing that Germans were coming; fleeing to Trieste; receiving permission to live in Concordia; attending an Italian school; her mother working for the local police commander; German invasion in 1943; the commander warning them to flee; being hidden in a convent, then with a family; obtaining false papers at a monastery in Nonantola; living with a priest's sister in Fiorano; her grandmother's death; liberation by partisans; learning her father had been killed; moving to Modena; working with Jewish refugees; emigration to Israel; and Israeli children's disinterest in her story. Ms. Z. mentions sharing her experiences with her husband, but not her children; and a 1975 visit to Karolvac and to her grandmother's grave in the village in which she hid, where they were lovingly welcomed. She shows documents and photographs.