Overview
- Interview Summary
- Helena Žnidarćić, born in 1938 in Letus in the former Yugoslavia, describes learning about the arrest of her father, uncle, and brother in June of 1942; her arrest with her sisters, mother, and grandmother in July of 1942 by German forces; her transfer to a school in Celje where she was separated from her mother and grandmother; her transfer to Frohnleiten with her sisters; Germans and nuns of the Red Cross on guard there; her transfer to the concentration camp at Kassel with her sisters; receiving new clothes and finding gold rings sewn into them; her understanding that the clothes were taken from Jews; her transfer to Meinburg where she learned the German language; her transfer to Neuschift, then Saltenberg, and then Bamugarten without her sisters; finding her grandmother in Bamugarten; reuniting with her sisters in Bamugarten in 1944 and returning to Slovenia; her brother volunteering for the German army under the condition that his sisters would be released; living with cousins in Slovenia until the end of the war; reuniting with her grandmother in Letus before liberation; the flight of German and Ustaša forces during liberation; partisans taking Germans to Hudova Jama; and the long-term effects of the Holocaust on her family.
- Interviewee
- Helena Žnidarćić
- Date
-
interview:
2009 February 03
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, courtesy of the Jeff and Toby Herr Foundation
Physical Details
- Language
- Slovenian
- Extent
-
1 videocassette (DVCAM) : sound, color ; 1/4 in..
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
Keywords & Subjects
- Topical Term
- World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, Slovenian. Germanization--Slovenia. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Yugoslavia. Women concentration camp inmates. World War, 1939-1945--Atrocities--Slovenia. World War, 1939-1945--Children--Slovenia. World War, 1939-1945--Concentration camps--Austria. World War, 1939-1945--Deportations from Slovenia. World War, 1939-1945--Prisoners and prisons, Slovenian. Women--Personal narratives.
- Geographic Name
- Austria. Celje (Slovenia) Frohnleiten (Austria) Germany. Kassel (Germany) Letuš (Slovenia) Slovenia--History--1918-1945. Slovenia--History--Axis occupation, 1941-1945. Slovenia.
- Personal Name
- Žnidarćić, Helena.
Administrative Notes
- Holder of Originals
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- This is a witness interview of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Perpetrators, Collaborators, and Witnesses: The Jeff and Toby Herr Testimony Initiative, a multi-year project to record the testimonies of non-Jewish witnesses to the Holocaust. Nathan Beyrak, Project Director for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Oral History Branch, coordinated the interview with Helena Žnidarćić on February 3, 2009 as part of the Museum's Former Yugoslavia Witnesses Documentation Project in Slovenia.
- Funding Note
- The production of this interview was made possible by Jeff and Toby Herr.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 09:17:28
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn45156
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Also in Oral history interviews of the Former Yugoslavia Witnesses Documentation Project, Slovenia
Oral history interviews of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Former Yugoslavia Witnesses Documentation Project in Slovenia.
Date: 2009
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Janez Štiglic, born in 1938 in the former Yugoslavia, describes his deportation to the concentration camp at Celje in 1942; mass shootings in Celje, which resulted in the death of his father; the death of his mother in Auschwitz; his transfer between different concentration camps; being a subject to medical experimentation; his liberation in 1945 by American forces; his return to Slovenia with his neighbor and brother; and the long-term effects of his experiences during the war on his life.
Oral history interview with Miloš Poljanšek
Oral History
Miloš Poljanšek, born in 1923 in the former Yugoslavia, describes his deportation to Somobor and then Ljubljana in 1941; joining the resistance movement; his arrest and interrogation by Italian police in 1943; two Jewish prisoners in his cell in the prison in Ljubljana; his transfer to a prison in Kopar; his transfer to Hamburg Neuengamme concentration camp in 1943 by German fores; conditions in the concentration camp; his release in 1944 and return to Slovenia; and his time in a working brigade until the end of the war.
