- Summary
- Videotape testimony of Rachel L., who was born in Chełm, Poland in 1924. Mrs. L. recalls family life; her father's respected position; German occupation; establishment of the Judenrat; ghettoization; children becoming "old" people; hunger; a mass killing in December 1939; forced labor; her father's death from hunger; her mother being taken on the first round-up; forming a bond with another girl who had been left alone; and going together to Polish villages. She describes helpful farmers; fear of staying long due to the risk to their helpers; Germans compelling Jews to perform humiliating acts in the Rejowiec ghetto; forced labor with chemicals resulting in burns and gangrene in her fingers; deportation to Majdanek; exchanging names with one of two sisters so they could remain together; transfer to Skarżysko-Kamienna; munitions work; producing more than her quota; receiving extra soup from the overseer which she shared with a friend; transfer a year later to Częstochowa, then Ravensbrück, and to Bergen-Belsen in 1945; extreme conditions; mass burials; liberation by British troops; many deaths after liberation; and contacting her future husband. Mrs. L. vividly details life and conditions in ghettos and concentration camps.
- Author/Creator
- L., Rachel, 1924-
- Published
- New Haven, Conn. : Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University, 1989
- Interview Date
- November 28, 1989.
- Locale
- Poland
Chełm (Lublin)
Rejowiec Lubelski
Rejowiec Lubelski (Poland)
Chełm (Lublin, Poland)
- Cite As
- Rachel L. Holocaust Testimony (HVT-1304). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University Library.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Wizner, Rachel, interviewer.
Kline, Dana L., interviewer.
- Notes
-
This interview is in Yiddish.
