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Lilly F. Holocaust testimony (HVT-4327) interviewed by Barbara Hadley Katz and Lawrence L. Langer,

Oral History | Fortunoff Collection ID: HVT-4327

Videotape testimony of Lilly F., who was born in Czechoslovakia in 1924, one of seven children of a rebbe. She recounts her mother's death in 1937; her older sister's emigration to the United States; her father's futile emigration efforts, including a trip to Portugal; Hungarian occupation; anti-Jewish restrictions; working in a factory to help support her family; her father's draft into a Hungarian slave labor battalion; his return nine months later; German invasion; deportation to Irshava, then the Munkács ghetto; deportation three weeks later to Auschwitz; separation from her father and brothers (she never saw them again); transfer with her sisters and cousin to Płaszów; a mass killing of people from Kraków; having to strip the bodies and prepare them for burning in a pit; locals workers smuggling food to them; transfer to Auschwitz/Birkenau, then three weeks later to Neustadt; slave labor in a weaving factory; a death march to Mauthausen in January 1945; assisting her sister who could not walk; train transfer to Gross-Rosen, then Bergen-Belsen; all of them having typhus; liberation by British troops; living in displaced persons camps in Bergen-Belsen and Celle; assistance from UNRRA and the Joint; marriage in 1946; her daughter's birth in 1947; and emigration to the United States in 1948. Ms. F. discusses emotional problems and nightmares resulting from her experiences; not talking about her past with her children or others, except with those who were in camps; and a recent trip with her family to her hometown, Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, and Hungary. She shows a New Year's card from Bergen-Belsen.

Author/Creator
F., Lilly, 1924-
Published
New Haven, Conn. : Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 2005
Interview Date
March 30, 2005.
Locale
Ukraine
Mukacheve
Czechoslovakia
Irshava (Ukraine)
Celle (Germany)
Language
English
Copies
3 copies: DVCam master; Betacam SP submaster; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
Cite As
Lilly F. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-4327). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
 
View in Yale University Library Catalog: http://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/7168460
Record last modified: 2018-05-29 11:47:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/hvt7168460