- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Miriam T., who was born in Znojmo, Czechoslovakia in 1924, the older of two sisters. She recounts living in Pohořelice; attending Czech public school; her mother's illness in 1931; wonderful visits to her maternal grandmother; participating in Makabi ha-tsaʻir; her mother's death in 1936; attending boarding school in Brno; fleeing with her father to Luhačovice two days prior to the German invasion; returning to school in Brno; anti-Jewish restrictions, including her expulsion from school; participating in hachsharahs in Mělník, Prague, and another town; a brief family visit in 1941; her father's arrest; notification that he died in Mauthausen; deportation to Theresienstadt in March 1942; living in the Hechalutz barrack; her sister living in a children's barrack; her paternal grandmother's death; assignment to the garden; smuggling food to her group, but not her sister; arrival of relatives; frequent deportations including her relatives; and the Jewish administration's efforts to save the young at the expense of the elderly.
Ms. T. recalls her relationship with her future husband; having an abortion in the hospital (pregnant women were all deported); assignment to a munitions factory; sham improvements for a Red Cross visit; her future husband's deportation in May 1944; hiding when she was selected for a transport; shock at the condition of those arriving on death marches; keeping two diaries; abandonment by the guards; quarantine by the Red Cross; escaping with her sister; encountering Soviet troops; one saving her from being raped by another; walking to Prague; assistance from the Joint; reunion with her future husband; briefly returning with her sister to Pohořelice; marriage; her husband's military draft; her daughter's birth in April 1946; living in Abertamy; emigration to Israel in 1948; her son's birth; her husband's draft into the Israeli army; and living on a kibbutz. Ms. T. discusses looking for her father after the war and continuing guilt over his death; arguing with Israelis who expressed contempt for survivors; helping found Bet Ṭerezin at her kibbutz; and visits to Mauthausen and Auschwitz with her children. She shows photographs and documents, and reads from her diary and a letter.
- Author/Creator
- T., Miriam, 1924-
- Published
- Tel Aviv, Israel : Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1997
- Interview Date
- January 23 and February 6, 1997.
- Locale
- Israel
Czechoslovakia
Znojmo (Czech Republic)
Brno (Czech Republic)
Luhačovice (Czech Republic)
Pohořelice (Jihomoravský kraj, Czech Republic)
Mělník (Czech Republic)
Prague (Czech Republic)
Abertamy (Czech Republic)
- Cite As
- Miriam T. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3885). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Notes
-
This testimony is in Hebrew.
