Testimony of Hilda (Witt) Skutelski, born in Liepaja, Latvia, 1922, regarding her experiences in Liepaja, the ghetto and in hiding

Testimony of Hilda (Witt) Skutelski, born in Liepaja, Latvia, 1922, regarding her experiences in Liepaja, the ghetto and in hiding Family life before the war. Outbreak of the war, June 1941; deportation to forced labor in Wehrmacht officers' barracks; details about the murder of individual Jews; desecration of Jewish ritual objects; concentration of the Jews in groups and their deportation to an execution site in Skeden; escape with a friend and her husband during the large "Aktion", 22 December 1941; in hiding in a factory in which her friend works; receivies help from the German factory owner; cessation of the murders after three days; return home and continuation of work; deportation to the ghetto, July 1942; ghetto life; labor in a factory; Judenrat; social life; escape from the ghetto initiated by David Zivcon, a friend of her future husband; hidden by a Latvian named Robert Sedul, later recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations, who built a bunker under a large bakery located in a building in which other Jews live; death of their rescuer in an air-raid on the building in which they were hidden, and his wife's concern to find them a new hiding place with another Latvian; life in hiding; changes hiding places under the constant threat of danger to the Jews and their rescuers. Life in Latvia after the war; search for relatives; discovery that not one of them had survived; aliya to Israel, 1972.