Advanced Search

Learn About The Holocaust

Special Collections

My Saved Research

Login

Register

Help

Skip to main content

Oral history interview with Nellie Cesana

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 1999.A.0122.803 | RG Number: RG-50.477.0803

Search this record's additional resources, such as finding aids, documents, or transcripts.

No results match this search term.
Check spelling and try again.

results are loading

0 results found for “keyward

    Oral history interview with Nellie Cesana

    Overview

    Interview Summary
    The interviews describe Ms. Cesana's young childhood in Warsaw, Poland; her early memories of the bombing of Warsaw in 1939; and of the construction of the Warsaw ghetto. Ms. Cesana describes her experiences in the ghetto, her brother's passing with false identity cards, hiding from blockades and roundups, and the hunger and fear she endured. She describes her and her mother's escape from the ghetto with the assistance of her brother, and their voyage to Germany with other Polish volunteer workers under assumed identities. Ms. Cesana discusses her experiences in Germany on a farm where her mother found work, the freedom she enjoyed, and the devastation of learning that her brother had been killed in the ghetto. She describes her liberation in April 1945 by Russian troops, her and her mother's return to Warsaw and their attempts to find surviving family members. Ms. Cesana discusses her experiences with antisemitism after the war, the Jewish community that emerged near Breslau and Reichenbach, her mother's remarriage to an Auschwitz survivor, and the family's immigration to Israel in 1950. She describes her education in Israel, her marriage there, and her immigration to the United States with her husband and young son.
    Interviewee
    Nellie Cesana
    Date
    interview:  1991 February 28
    Credit Line
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Jewish Family and Children's Services of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties

    Physical Details

    Language
    English
    Extent
    2 videocassettes (SVHS) : sound, color ; 1/2 in..

    Rights & Restrictions

    Conditions on Access
    There are no known restrictions on access to this material.

    Keywords & Subjects

    Personal Name
    Cesana, Nellie.

    Administrative Notes

    Provenance
    The Bay Area Holocaust Oral History Project conducted the interview with Nellie Cesana on February 28, 1991. The interview was received by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives Branch in December 2003.
    Funding Note
    The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
    Record last modified:
    2023-11-16 08:46:56
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/irn515835

    Additional Resources

    Download & Licensing

    In-Person Research

    Contact Us