Sara M. Holocaust testimony (HVT-4341) interviewed by Sara Moss Herz and Joanne Weiner Rudof

Videotape testimony of Sara M., an only child, who was born in Piotrków Trybunalski, Poland in 1938. She recounts early memories of fear; living among many relatives; constant hunger; her mother soothing her; being smuggled to a non-Jewish family friend during a round-up in about 1943; being smuggled back to the ghetto two weeks later (her mother was gone); being cared for by her mother's half-sister; a painful separation from her father when forced to board cattle trains; her aunt caring for her in Ravensbrück; sexual abuse by guards on Christmas; a female SS guard giving her extra food because she looked like her daughter; transfer to Bergen-Belsen; bodies strewn everywhere; indescribable hunger pains; liberation by British troops in April 1945; a long hospitalization; living with her aunt in the displaced persons camp; reunion with her father; wandering in nearby fields and drawing; other relatives joining them; attending school; her father's marriage to her aunt; her brother's birth in 1946; and their emigration to the United States in 1949. Ms. M. discusses never really being told her mother's fate; her father's emotional problems, her pervasive nightmares, and issues with food resulting from their experiences; and becoming an artist, which brings her great joy.