Hedva Fraydi Yaari

Testimony of Hedva Freidi Yaari née Leibovich, born in 1928 in Chust, Czechoslovakia, about her experiences in Chust, Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Bremen area, etc. Childhood in an affluent Vizhnitz Hasidic family, owners of a large shop in Chust; attending a public school and a Beth Jacob school; Hungary re-annexes the area in 1938; shop confiscated in 1942; brothers-in-law conscripted into labor brigades; studies halted; German occupation ensues in March 1944; four German officers enter the family home; life at home in the ghetto; severe overcrowding; deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau; reaching the camp on the eve of the Shavuot festival; living with two sisters in Block 16; idle life for about half a year; transfer with a group of 500 women to the Bremen area in December 1944; working at a munitions plant; living without information about the situation in Birkenau; multiple bombardments; evacuation by train in late April 1945; train is bombarded; marching; liberation by Allied forces; convalescence; reunited with two sisters and mother; life in a displaced persons camp in German; activity in the Agudat Israel movement; immigration to Israel with two sisters in 1948.