Lotte S. Holocaust testimony (HVT-79) interviewed by Laurel Vlock

Videotape testimony of Lotte S., who was born into an upper middle class family in Frankfurt am Main. Mrs. S. describes her early childhood in Germany and emigration to Amsterdam after the Nazis came to power; the outbreak of the war; support by the Dutch; anti-Jewish legislation; and the beginnings of ghettoization and deportations. She tells of her arrest, along with her mother and sister, despite their acquisition of Paraguayan passports; their arrival in Westerbork; and conditions there. She recalls her transport to, and daily life in, Ravensbrück, where her mother died; her relationship with her sister; slave labor in the Siemens satellite camp; and the institution of extermination at Ravensbrück toward the end of the war. She recounts her and her sister's mysterious transfer to an isolated house outside Terezín, where they were questioned by high SS officials including Adolf Eichmann, and their subsequent release into the Terezín ghetto. Mrs. S. also relates her postwar return to Holland to work with survivors; her emigration to the United States in 1947 and to Israel in 1956; the cathartic effect of the Eichmann trial; and her views on survival and humanity.