Ruth B. Holocaust testimony (HVT-4157)

Videotape testimony of Ruth B., who was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1934, the first of two children. She recounts not knowing she was Jewish; attending Maccabi events; German invasion; her first sense of being Jewish based on anti-Jewish restrictions; her grandparents' deportation to Theresienstadt, then hers with her family in July 1942 (her grandfather died before their arrival); her father's assignments outside the camp; her mother and aunt working with the elderly, many of whom died; performing in the children's theater; sham improvements prior to a Red Cross visit; liberation by Soviet troops; living in her grandmother's village, Prague, and near Terezín; antisemitic harassment in school; emigration with her family to Israel in 1949; and living on a Hashomer Hatzair kibbutz. Ms. B. discusses their survival due to her father keeping them off the transport lists; Israeli lack of interest in the Holocaust; not discussing it, even in her family; nightmares; and always feeling like an outsider, both in Czechoslovakia and Israel.