{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/fx73t9fs0x/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Roma B."]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/005/original/Fortunoff-Logo.png?1549333634","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eRoma (Romana) B., was born on November 10th, 1926 in Warsaw (Warszawa). She had a younger brother named Miecio. Her father Jacob N. had studied economics in Vienna and worked in the timber trade of his father. However, his real love was books and literature. Roma's mother Guta (née G.) had broken off her engineering studies and ended up working for the Polish Palestine Trade Commission. Roma grew up with a variety of languages and developed under the guidance of her beloved mother into a passionate reader. Her parents made sure that their daughter learned Hebrew at school. A diploma from the Jewish High School that Roma attended would not only have opened access to Polish universities, but would also have opened the possibility of her attending the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In addition to her mother and her nanny Hanka, there was also her grandmother, the third strong and loving woman in Roma's life. Her father's parents lived in the same building. They were connected to Jewish tradition, lived kosher and kept the holidays, but did not share the Zionist ideology of their daughter-in-law.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe family's life changed radically with the outbreak of the Second World War. Roma's father was initially drafted into the military. The timber business went up in flames during the bombing of Warsaw, the Palestine Trade Commission was closed, and shortly afterwards the Jewish schools too. Roma and her brother got together with other Jewish children for private lessons as long as it was possible. The grandmother began to stockpile supplies for the family.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eRoma's family was soon forced to rent out most of the rooms in their apartment to other Jewish families. When the Germans established the “Jewish quarter”, the house was within the borders of the ghetto. Cold and hunger were rampant. Roma remembers corpses covered with newspaper on the street. Her father nearly died during a typhus epidemic. People from Roma's immediate environment began to disappear. In August 1942, the family had to move to another part of the ghetto, where they found a room to stay. Nazi raids and “actions” had become part of everyday life.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eAs the situation became even more dangerous, her parents decided that Roma should be sent to a labor camp outside the ghetto, as she would be safer there. After initial resisting the idea, she eventually separated from her parents and her brother and was deported to the vicinity of Łowicz, where she performed forced labor in agriculture for the Germans. She stayed in contact with her parents in the ghetto by mail until she learned of their deportation in September 1942. Before Roma managed to return to the ghetto in January 1943 and stay with an aunt, she also worked in Rembertow Forced Labor Camp, where she helped produce uniforms and steel helmets for the Wehrmacht.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eRoma's relatives in the Ghetto built a hiding place to escape the “actions” of the Germans as long as possible. In April 1943, the cellar where they had barricaded themselves was discovered and excavated by the Germans. Roma was deported to Majdanek Concentration Camp, where her uncle was brutally beaten on arrival because he wanted to help his wife off of the train. Roma was soon separated from her aunt. Their work in Majdanek Concentration Camp was splitting stones into gravel. She gives detailed depictions of the hunger, the hard working-conditions and the harassment by the Kapos there. In July 1943, she was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp. First, she was assigned to an external commando (a work detail outside of the main camp), which undertook excavations. The purpose of the excavations remained unknown, but she understood that she would not survive long under the conditions of this heavy physical labor. She managed to obtain work within the camp and was made responsible for the maintenance of the camp roads. From this commando, she moved on into the “Canada Commando,” which sorted the baggage of those arriving into the concentration camp. With the help of her fellow inmates, she survived tonsillitis and a severe bladder infection.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eOn January 18th, 1945 Roma was sent on a death march. She describes the cruelty, but also the chaos of this withdrawal. The Germans shot those fleeing and weakened, but were at the same time afraid of falling into the hands of the advancing Russians. Roma and her fellow inmates were loaded into open freight cars, probably in Leslau (now named Włocławek), and they finally reached Ravensbrück Concentration Camp via Berlin. Suffering from exhaustion and hunger, Roma increasingly lost her sense of orientation. Her last stop before the liberation was Malchow Concentration Camp, where she had to plant trees, which were used to camouflage an arms factory. She remained there until the German guards fled.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eRoma initially returned to Poland, where she found two cousins who had survived the war with false papers. In February 1946, the three young women set off for West Berlin, and later settled in the American sector in Frankfurt. Here Roma finally managed to get her high school diploma. Until April 1948 she was enrolled to study medicine, but in May 1948 she emigrated to Israel and joined the army. She married in 1951 and had two children with her husband. Together with her son Dovon B., she published her memories in a 2006 book entitled “What Time and Sadness Spared: Mother and Son Confront the Holocaust.”\u003c/p\u003e (Abstract)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Source Metadata URI"]},"value":{"en":["https://archiv.zwangsarbeit-archiv.de/en/interviews/za581"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2006-03-25 (Creation)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Agent"]},"value":{"en":["B., Roma, 1926-11-10 (Interviewee)","Laub, Dori, 1937-06-08 - 2018-06-23 (Interviewer)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Format"]},"value":{"en":["4 videotapes"]}},{"label":{"en":["Subject"]},"value":{"en":["Video tapes (topical)","Forced labor (topical)","women (topical)","Oral histories (document genres) (genre_form)","Warsaw Ghetto (Person or Corporate Body)","Lowitsch Forced Labor Camp for Jews (Person or Corporate Body)","Rembertów Forced Labor Camp for Jews (Person or Corporate Body)","Majdanek Concentration Camp (Person or Corporate Body)","Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp (Person or Corporate Body)","Ravensbrück Concentration Camp (Person or Corporate Body)","Malchow Sub-Concentration Camp (Person or Corporate Body)","Eschwege DP Camp (Person or Corporate Body)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Coverage"]},"value":{"en":["New Haven, Conn. (Place of Recording)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English (primary)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Relation"]},"value":{"en":["Roma B. Interview za581. Interview Archive „Forced Labor 1939-1945“. Access at https://archiv.zwangsarbeit-archiv.de/en/interviews/za581 (conforms to)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Identifier"]},"value":{"en":["za581 (Source Identifier)"]}}],"summary":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eRoma (Romana) B., was born on November 10th, 1926 in Warsaw (Warszawa). She had a younger brother named Miecio. Her father Jacob N. had studied economics in Vienna and worked in the timber trade of his father. However, his real love was books and literature. Roma's mother Guta (n\u0026eacute;e G.) had broken off her engineering studies and ended up working for the Polish Palestine Trade Commission. Roma grew up with a variety of languages and developed under the guidance of her beloved mother into a passionate reader. Her parents made sure that their daughter learned Hebrew at school. A diploma from the Jewish High School that Roma attended would not only have opened access to Polish universities, but would also have opened the possibility of her attending the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In addition to her mother and her nanny Hanka, there was also her grandmother, the third strong and loving woman in Roma's life. Her father's parents lived in the same building. They were connected to Jewish tradition, lived kosher and kept the holidays, but did not share the Zionist ideology of their daughter-in-law.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eThe family's life changed radically with the outbreak of the Second World War. Roma's father was initially drafted into the military. The timber business went up in flames during the bombing of Warsaw, the Palestine Trade Commission was closed, and shortly afterwards the Jewish schools too. Roma and her brother got together with other Jewish children for private lessons as long as it was possible. The grandmother began to stockpile supplies for the family.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eRoma's family was soon forced to rent out most of the rooms in their apartment to other Jewish families. When the Germans established the \u0026ldquo;Jewish quarter\u0026rdquo;, the house was within the borders of the ghetto. Cold and hunger were rampant. Roma remembers corpses covered with newspaper on the street. Her father nearly died during a typhus epidemic. People from Roma's immediate environment began to disappear. In August 1942, the family had to move to another part of the ghetto, where they found a room to stay. Nazi raids and \u0026ldquo;actions\u0026rdquo; had become part of everyday life.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eAs the situation became even more dangerous, her parents decided that Roma should be sent to a labor camp outside the ghetto, as she would be safer there. After initial resisting the idea, she eventually separated from her parents and her brother and was deported to the vicinity of Łowicz, where she performed forced labor in agriculture for the Germans. She stayed in contact with her parents in the ghetto by mail until she learned of their deportation in September 1942. Before Roma managed to return to the ghetto in January 1943 and stay with an aunt, she also worked in Rembertow Forced Labor Camp, where she helped produce uniforms and steel helmets for the Wehrmacht.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eRoma's relatives in the Ghetto built a hiding place to escape the \u0026ldquo;actions\u0026rdquo; of the Germans as long as possible. In April 1943, the cellar where they had barricaded themselves was discovered and excavated by the Germans. Roma was deported to Majdanek Concentration Camp, where her uncle was brutally beaten on arrival because he wanted to help his wife off of the train. Roma was soon separated from her aunt. Their work in Majdanek Concentration Camp was splitting stones into gravel. She gives detailed depictions of the hunger, the hard working-conditions and the harassment by the Kapos there. In July 1943, she was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp. First, she was assigned to an external commando (a work detail outside of the main camp), which undertook excavations. The purpose of the excavations remained unknown, but she understood that she would not survive long under the conditions of this heavy physical labor. She managed to obtain work within the camp and was made responsible for the maintenance of the camp roads. From this commando, she moved on into the \u0026ldquo;Canada Commando,\u0026rdquo; which sorted the baggage of those arriving into the concentration camp. With the help of her fellow inmates, she survived tonsillitis and a severe bladder infection.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eOn January 18th, 1945 Roma was sent on a death march. She describes the cruelty, but also the chaos of this withdrawal. The Germans shot those fleeing and weakened, but were at the same time afraid of falling into the hands of the advancing Russians. Roma and her fellow inmates were loaded into open freight cars, probably in Leslau (now named Włocławek), and they finally reached Ravensbr\u0026uuml;ck Concentration Camp via Berlin. Suffering from exhaustion and hunger, Roma increasingly lost her sense of orientation. Her last stop before the liberation was Malchow Concentration Camp, where she had to plant trees, which were used to camouflage an arms factory. She remained there until the German guards fled.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eRoma initially returned to Poland, where she found two cousins who had survived the war with false papers. In February 1946, the three young women set off for West Berlin, and later settled in the American sector in Frankfurt. Here Roma finally managed to get her high school diploma. Until April 1948 she was enrolled to study medicine, but in May 1948 she emigrated to Israel and joined the army. She married in 1951 and had two children with her husband. Together with her son Dovon B., she published her memories in a 2006 book entitled \u0026ldquo;What Time and Sadness Spared: Mother and Son Confront the Holocaust.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e"]},"provider":[{"id":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/005/original/Fortunoff-Logo.png?1549333634","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/208/013/small/ZA581_04_01_sd720p.mp4_1694937127.jpg?1694937128","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2227/collection_resources/107097/file/208013","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 4 - ZA581_04_01_sd720p.mp4"]},"duration":3746.92,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/208/013/small/ZA581_04_01_sd720p.mp4_1694937127.jpg?1694937128","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2227/collection_resources/107097/file/208013/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2227/collection_resources/107097/file/208013/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-fortunoff.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/208/013/original/ZA581_04_01_sd720p.mp4?1694937121","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":3746.92,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2227/collection_resources/107097/file/208013","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[]},{"id":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2227/collection_resources/107097/file/208014","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 2 of 4 - ZA581_04_02_sd720p.mp4"]},"duration":3597.64,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/208/014/small/ZA581_04_02_sd720p.mp4_1694938974.jpg?1694938975","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2227/collection_resources/107097/file/208014/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2227/collection_resources/107097/file/208014/content/2/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-fortunoff.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/208/014/original/ZA581_04_02_sd720p.mp4?1694938968","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":3597.64,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2227/collection_resources/107097/file/208014","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[]},{"id":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2227/collection_resources/107097/file/208015","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 3 of 4 - ZA581_04_03_sd720p.mp4"]},"duration":3502.96,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/208/015/small/ZA581_04_03_sd720p.mp4_1694942103.jpg?1694942105","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2227/collection_resources/107097/file/208015/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2227/collection_resources/107097/file/208015/content/3/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-fortunoff.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/208/015/original/ZA581_04_03_sd720p.mp4?1694942098","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":3502.96,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2227/collection_resources/107097/file/208015","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[]},{"id":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2227/collection_resources/107097/file/208016","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 4 of 4 - ZA581_04_04_sd720p.mp4"]},"duration":3638.88,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/208/016/small/ZA581_04_04_sd720p.mp4_1694944084.jpg?1694944086","type":"Image","format":"image/jpeg"}],"items":[{"id":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2227/collection_resources/107097/file/208016/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2227/collection_resources/107097/file/208016/content/4/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-fortunoff.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/208/016/original/ZA581_04_04_sd720p.mp4?1694944079","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":3638.88,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://fortunoff.aviaryplatform.com/collections/2227/collection_resources/107097/file/208016","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[]}]}