Elsa R. Holocaust testimony (HVT-625) interviewed by Emanuel Landau and Lilian Sicular

Videotape testimony of Elsa R., who was born in Lübeck, Germany, in 1908. Ms. R. tells of leaving her family in 1929 to work in Munich; antisemitism; disillusionment with her Christian fiance, who alone knew she was Jewish; and obtaining a post in Turin, Italy in 1935 with the help of an anti-Nazi company official. She relates visiting her sister in Rome; friendship with her firm's Turin representative; the 1938 laws expelling all foreign Jews; unsuccessful attempts to obtain an American visa; her friends' bribery of police, so her file might be "lost"; arrest; transport in 1940 to a women's camp for political internees and prostitutes at Casacalenda; camp conditions; receiving permission for an unsupervised visit to Turin; Italian capitulation; German occupation; and liberation by Canadian soldiers. She recounts briefly staying at an ex-POW camp in Bari; working for the Allied Military Government (AMG); transfer to another AMG detachment at Udine; departure on a liberty ship from Genoa; and arrival in Charleston, South Carolina. She reflects on how the war changed her life; pride in her achievements; and closeness with her sister.