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Karoline H. Holocaust testimony (HVT-1124) interviewed by Barbara Hadley Katz and Helen Katz,

Oral History | Fortunoff Collection ID: HVT-1124

Videotape testimony of Karoline H., who was born in Barmen, near Wuppertal, Germany in 1911. Mrs. H. recalls childhood in a comfortable, non-observant family; lack of early exposure to antisemitism; attending the University of Freiburg, where she was mistaken for an "Aryan" by Nazi students; working in her parents' store after being barred from law school; her older brother's marriage to a Catholic in 1934; increasing antisemitic restrictions; her parents' naiveté about Nazism; and marriage to a naturalized Dutch Jew in 1936. She describes deteriorating conditions in Danzig (where her husband had a business); her son's birth in 1937; moving to Amsterdam in mid-1938; after Kristallnacht, persuading her parents to join them; German occupation of Holland; and escape attempts (during one they were apprehended and released by a sympathetic German officer). She relates months of hiding; their escape in 1942 with false papers via Belgium, France and Spain to Paramaribo, Dutch Guyana; postwar reunion with her brother; and learning of the deportation and killing of her parents.

Author/Creator
H., Karoline, 1911-2003.
Published
New Haven, Conn. : Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, 1988
Interview Date
December 15, 1988.
Locale
Germany
Barmen (Wuppertal, Germany)
Paramaribo (Suriname)
Gdańsk (Poland)
Amsterdam (Netherlands)
Language
English
Copies
3 copies: 3/4 in. master; 3/4 in. dub; and 1/2 in. VHS with time coding.
Cite As
Karoline H. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-1124). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
 
View in Yale University Library Catalog: http://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/972032
Record last modified: 2018-05-30 11:33:00
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/hvt972032