Testimony of Chana Engel Levi, born in Germany, 1926, regarding the rise to power of the Nazis, 1933, the persecution of German Jews, deportation to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp and the death march

Testimony of Chana Engel Levi, born in Germany, 1926 *, regarding the rise to power of the Nazis, 1933, the persecution of German Jews, deportation to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp and the death march Family background, the only daughter; relocation to Neuwied, 1927; studies at a state-run Jewish school; the activities of her father in the Social Democratic Party. The rise of the Nazis to power, 1933; dismissal of the father from his job and inability to get a job elsewhere due to being a Jew; difficult financial situation; confiscation of Jewish property; derogatory exclamations on the part of Christian neighbors who before the rise of the Nazis were members of the community; younger brother's birth, 1936 and his death after three months; aunt's visit to Amsterdam, 1936; Kristallnacht riots, 10/11/1938; burglary of a house by German rioters, removal of the witness and parents from the house and looting of the house; beating her father; her father's arrest by the police/her father is being called up by the police; the brutal murder of her uncle by Germans; deportation of her father to the Dachau camp; staying with her mother in the ruined house; moving house to a Jewish family into a room in the family home; he father's return after about three months from the camp; back to town Hennef sieg; departure for training in Amsdorf for three months, February 1941; separation from parents; receipt of a last postcard from her parents sent east to Poland stating that they thought they were being transferred to Minsk; deportation to the Auschwitz camp with a pioneering training group, April 20 (Hitler's birthday) 1943; arrival to Birkenau; the camp; arrangements; stay about 6 weeks; 16th birthday of the witness in the camp; work in an ironing room in the laundry of S.S.; entry of girls from the group into the camp orchestra; transfer to a residence outside the camp near the laundromat, summer of 1943; departure for a death march; the difficulties in the death march; arrival to the Malchow camp; continued death march; disappearance of some S.S. men; disengagement from the convoy and escape to a nearby village in the Leipzig area; receiving help from a farm owner in the village, receiving food and caring for her and a group of friends who were with her. Liberation, late April 1945; transfer to the Buchenwald DP camp; aliya to Eretz Israel. * The place of birth cannot be heard due to a technical malfunction in the recording; there are a lot of technical issues so the testimony is heard partially