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Irena S. Holocaust testimony (HVT-3937) interviewed by Peter Salner and Eva Salnerová,

Oral History | Digitized | Fortunoff Collection ID: HVT-3937

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    Overview

    Summary
    Videotape testimony of Irena S., who was born in approximately 1941. She recounts learning at age twenty-seven that she may have been born in Poland; being left in Slovakia in September 1943 when she was very ill (she speculates her biological parents were attempting to escape to Hungary); a Jewish man taking her and promising to send her to her parents when she recovered; the town doctor placing her with a Jewish couple; obtaining false papers through her foster mother's sister; bonding with her foster parents within a month; learning Germans were approaching; the adults deciding to hide in the mountains and leave the children with non-Jewish neighbors; being left with a non-Jewish family for a week before the departure; her impossible behavior; her mother deciding to stay with her; the adult group deciding to bring her with them, despite the dangers of having a young child; living in a hut, then a bunker; moving several times; becoming “everyone's child”; moving to Prešov after liberation; her father's incarceration in 1950; their forced relocation to a village; terrible conditions; her father's release a year later; completing high school; applying to university three times due to political issues; admission in 1958; studying journalism; her father's death in 1965; a government job; and resigning in 1991 due to antisemitism. Ms. S. discusses at length events and issues related to discovering her parents were not her biological parents; not being able to imagine loving her mother more than she does, particularly since her mother risked her life for her, a stranger's child; and not knowing which are her real memories and which result from being told about her childhood.
    Author/Creator
    S., Irena.
    Published
    Bratislava, Slovakia : Milan Šimečka Foundation, 1996
    Interview Date
    May 5, 1996.
    Locale
    Prešov (Slovakia)
    Cite As
    Irena S. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-3937). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
    Other Authors/Editors
    Salner, Peter, interviewer.
    Salnerová, Eva, interviewer.
    Notes
    This testimony is in Slovak.

    Physical Details

    Language
    Slovak
    Copies
    3 copies: Betacam SP dub; 1/2 VHS in. dub; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
    Physical Description
    1 videorecording (1 hr., 38 min.) : col

    Keywords & Subjects

    Subjects (Local Yale)
    Child survivors.
    False papers.
    Hiding.
    Aid by non-Jews.
    Postwar experiences.
    Antisemitism Postwar.

    Administrative Notes

    Link to Yale University Library Catalog:
    http://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/4528147
    Record last modified:
    2018-05-29 11:53:00
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/hvt4528147

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