Rachel L. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3842)

Videotape testimony of Rachel L., who was born in Zduńska Wola, Poland in 1926, one of six children in a Hasidic family. She recounts attending public school; cordial relations with non-Jews; vacationing in Andrzejów; returning to Łódź; German invasion; her parents hiding their valuables; eviction from their home; ghettoization; living with an aunt; retrieving their valuables; trading them for necessities; her privileged position in the kitchen; sharing extra food with her family; deportation of her parents and siblings, except one sister; brief hospitalization; hiding with her sister during round-ups; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; slave labor in a munitions factory; transfer with her sister to Bergen-Belsen, then several days later to Elsnig; German guards leaving them extra food; train transport; escaping during Allied bombings; capture by German soldiers; her sister being wounded; their separation; liberation by Soviet troops; locating her sister in a Magdeburg hospital; her death; traveling to Hildesheim; illegal emigration to Palestine via Aachen, Brussels, and Antwerp; quarantine in ʻAtlit; and reunion with relatives. Ms. L. notes not sharing her experiences, even with her children.