Janka C. Holocaust testimony (HVT-4243) interviewed by Michel Rosenfeldt and Daniel Weyssow

Videotape testimony of Janka C., who was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1920, the older of two sisters. She recounts her family's move to Vienna in 1921; their assimilated life style; attending public school; anti-Jewish harassment; the Anschluss; immediately deciding to emigrate to Belgium; traveling to Cologne; living with a Jewish family for several months; arrest when attempting to illegally enter Belgium; imprisonment in Aachen; release a week later; entering Belgium on her third attempt with assistance from a man she had met in prison; arriving in Antwerp via Liège and Brussels in October; her mother and sister joining her in November; her father's deportation to Dachau; receiving his ashes; German invasion; her sister's flight to France; moving with her mother to Brussels; living under false papers; her mother's deportation to Malines then Auschwitz; a priest warning her of round-ups and hiding her; arrest on the street; imprisonment in Avenue Louise; deportation to Malines; her future husband assisting her; eing assigned to work for a dentist, then as a nurse; observing women who gave birth, including Romanies with whom they were not allowed social contact; taking food from incoming packages for children; assignment to a room with Benita H. (HVT- 4192); liberation by British troops; returning to Brussels; searching for her mother in Vienna; learning she had not survived; locating her sister through the Red Cross; their reunion; marriage in 1946; and her decision not to have children based on her experiences. Ms. C. discusses constant fear and paralysis in Malines that continues to the present time; nightmares resulting from her experiences; testifying against camp officials; continuing hostility toward Germans and Austrians; and her sense that others do not want to hear about her experiences.