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Shoshana D. Holocaust testimony (HVT-4164) interviewed by Nathan Beyrak,

Oral History | Fortunoff Collection ID: HVT-4164

Videotape testimony of Shoshana D., who was born in Hajduböszörmény, Hungary in 1935, the youngest of five daughters. She recounts her family's affluence; her maternal grandparents' emigration to Palestine in 1936; attending Jewish, then public school; confiscation of her father's store; his draft into a Hungarian slave labor battalion; ghettoization; non-Jewish neighbors offering to take her and her sisters; her mother refusing, not wanting to be separated from them; their deportation to the Debrecen ghetto, then to Strasshof; being sent to Josefthal for agricultural slave labor; caring for the younger children while the others worked; transfer to a munitions factory in Altnagelberg; her mother giving her a spoon of sugar when she cried from starvation; placement in a hospital in Gmünd when she was ill; transfer with her family to Theresienstadt in March 1945; liberation by Soviet troops; traveling to Budapest; reunion with her father; returning to Hajduböszörmény; attending school; preparing to emigrate to Palestine through Hashomer Hatzair; illegal emigration with her family via Bratislava; interdiction by the British; nine months incarceration on Cyprus; joining her grandparents; marriage; and the births of four children. Ms. D. discusses her family's luck that they all survived; her orthodoxy; nightmares resulting from her experiences; not sharing her experiences with her children until recently; and her sense that her childhood and youth were stolen from her.

Author/Creator
D., Shoshana, 1935-
Published
Tel Aviv, Israel : Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 2000
Interview Date
January 13, 2000.
Locale
Hungary
Hajduböszörmény
Debrecen
Hajdúböszörmény (Hungary)
Josefsthal (Austria)
Altnagelberg (Austria)
Gmünd (Lower Austria, Austria)
Budapest (Hungary)
Bratislava (Slovakia)
Cyprus
Palestine
Language
English
Copies
2 copies: Betacam SP master; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
Cite As
Shoshana D. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-4164). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.