Overview
- Interview Summary
- Perla Sussi, a member of the Italian-Jewish community of Corfu, Greece, describes growing up in an educated and wealthy family as one of eight children; the Jewish community of 2,500 people in the city; the community’s separation from and integration with the rest of Corfu’s population; the demographics of the Jewish community; the arrival of German forces on Corfu in 1943; limitations imposed on the Jewish population; the impact of the Germans on the Jewish community; being required to gather in the town square with the rest of the Jews to receive identification cards; hiding with her entire family as a result of the goodwill of a family in a nearby village; the family later hiding separately from each other; being discovered and the entire family’s deportation to a transit camp and then Auschwitz; the journey to Auschwitz; the selection process and working; disbelief of the crematorium; collaboration between Greeks, Frenchmen, and the Germans; the evacuation of the Bund; learning about the fate of the Jews in Salonika; the evacuation of Auschwitz; working in a war supply factory; marrying the son of the family that hid her; and her postwar life and Jewish identity.
- Interviewee
- Perla Sussi
- Interviewer
- Hilde Gattmann
- Date
-
interview:
1996 November 12
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, courtesy of the Jeff and Toby Herr Foundation
Physical Details
- Language
- Italian
- Extent
-
3 videocasettes (Betacam SP) : sound, color ; 1/2 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
- Concentration camp inmates--Selection process. Forced labor. Hiding places--Greece. Holocaust survivors--Greece. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives. Identification cards--Greece. Jews, Italian--Greece--Kerkyra. Jews--Greece--Kerkyra. Jews--Identity. Jews--Legal status, laws, etc.--Greece. Women concentration camp inmates. World War, 1939-1945--Concentration camps--Greece. World War, 1939-1945--Deportations from Greece. Women--Personal narratives.
- Geographic Name
- Greece--History--Occupation, 1941-1944. Kerkyra (Greece)
- Personal Name
- Sussi, Perla.
- Corporate Name
- Auschwitz (Concentration camp)
Administrative Notes
- Holder of Originals
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- Jasa Almuli, project director for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Oral History Branch, coordinated the interview with Perla Sussi on November 12, 1996. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the tapes of the interview in December 1996.
- Funding Note
- The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 08:32:57
- This page:
- http://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn513548
Download & Licensing
- Request Copy
- See Rights and Restrictions
- Terms of Use
- This record is digitized but cannot be downloaded online.
In-Person Research
- Available for Research
- Plan a Research Visit
Contact Us
Also in Oral history interviews of the Corfu, Greece Documentation Project
Oral history interviews of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Corfu, Greece Project.
Date: 1996
Oral history interview with Esperance Tsiridaki
Oral History
Esperance Tsiridaki, born in Kerkyra (Corfu), Greece, in 1921, discusses her early family life; the outbreak of war in 1940; the arrival of the Germans; leaving with her family and heading to the villages; going into hiding; separation from her family; her experiences and fears in hiding; her marriage to Pano Tsiridaki; her husband providing food assistance to those in hiding; her husband's illness; going to Alepoú, Greece; the war experiences of her siblings; the fate of her immediate and extended family members; feeling grateful to those who wish to listen to her talk about her Holocaust experiences; and her post-war life and family.
Oral history interview with Armando Aaron and Rebecca Aaron
Oral History
Armando Aaron, born in Corfu (Kerkyra), Greece on October 29, 1920, describes his family; attending school and majoring in economics and accounting at the University of Athens; the Italian occupation and the changes when the Germans arrived in Corfu; the imprisoning of Jews in a fortress; remaining in the fortress for five days before being taken to Skadar (Shkodër, Albania); being taken to Patras, Greece, where he met a local man, Georgio Machadis, who invited him to escape and join him; going to Komi and joining the partisans, serving as a bookkeeper and economist; returning to Corfu after four months; his post-war life and marriage. Rebecca Aaron, wife of Armando Aaron, describes being a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp; her deportation and arrival at Auschwitz; how after six months Rebecca and others were sent to Bergen Belsen where they put to work in a factory; being liberated by the British and transferred to Celle, where they stayed for about four months; being taken by train to Brussels, Belgium, where she stayed twenty days; and boarding a plane for Athens then going to Corfu where she met her husband.
Oral history interview with Judita Tzeko
Oral History
Judita Tzeko describes her close-knit family from Corfu, Greece; the beginning of the war in 1940; her parents being taken to a concentration camp, from which they never returned; how their Jewish life was normal for her family before the war; the presence of some antisemitism, but Jews, Christians, and Muslims interacted; the 1940-1941 bombing and burning of Corfu by the Germans; the destruction of her father's store, after which he started another one and they all worked to maintain a normal life; the hunger and rationing; how after the Germans took over in September 1943, Jewish life became totally inactive and the Jews were afraid to go outside of their homes; how her entire family stopped working except for her father and her sister, Nata, who gave private school lessons and who also was a Red Cross volunteer and thus could circulate more freely; meeting her future husband, a sailor by the name of Jekos Satiri, a Christian whom she knew from school; getting baptized and married in a large monastery named Platitera; converting because at the time there were no civil marriages; getting married and changing her name in order to save her life; her post-war life; and her dedication to Judaism and pride in being Jewish.
