- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Esther A., who was born in Sevluš, Czechoslovakia (presently Vynohradiv, Ukraine) in 1928, one of seven children. She recounts attending school; Hungarian occupation; a brother fleeing to the Soviet Union and two sisters to Budapest; anti-Jewish restrictions, including expulsion from school in 1942; round-up with her remaining family in spring 1944; deportation to the Ungvár (Uz︠h︡horod) ghetto, then six weeks later to Auschwitz/Birkenau; her uncle being shot in the head en route; separation with her sisters from her parents and youngest sister; seeing her father from afar once; encountering cousins who had been deported earlier; one sister's selection for work; no communication with other prisoner groups; transfer with her sister to Ravensbrück; their separation; transfer to Barth a few days later; slave labor in a factory; hospitalization; the prisoner physicians giving her extra food and keeping her more than a month; an evacuation march; abandonment by the guards the first night; staying in an abandoned home; moving to a prisoner of war camp; liberation by Soviet troops; repatriation to Prague; encountering a cousin who informed her that three of her sisters had survived; joining them in Budapest; learning no other immediate family survived; support from an uncle who lived in Brussels; joining him in 1948; marriage to a survivor; and the births of her children. Ms. A. discusses never losing hope, but constantly feeling terrorized in camps; believing her religious faith helped her to survive; relations among prisoners and prisoner groups; not sharing all her experiences with her children, to shield them; and feeling lucky to have had three surviving sisters.
- Author/Creator
- A., Esther, 1928-
- Published
- Brussels, Belgium : Fondation Auschwitz, 1999
- Interview Date
- December 6 and 9, 1999.
- Locale
- Ukraine
Uz︠h︡horod
Czechoslovakia
Vynohradiv (Ukraine)
Prague (Czech Republic)
Budapest (Hungary)
Brussels (Belgium)
- Cite As
- Esther A. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-4255). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Rosenfeldt, Michel, interviewer.
Weyssow, Daniel, interviewer.
- Notes
-
This testimony is in French.
Related material: Hélène A. Holocaust testimony [sister](HVT-4244), Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.