Testimony of Esther Meir née Mendelovitz, born in 1929 in Ruscova, Romania, about her experiences in Ruscova, the Valea Viseului ghetto, and Auschwitz

Testimony of Esther Meir née Mendelovitz, born in 1929 in Ruscova, Romania, about her experiences in Ruscova, the Valea Viseului ghetto, and Auschwitz Life before the war; daughter of a traditional family; attending a Romanian school; German occupation; deportation to the Valea Viseului ghetto by Romanian gendarmes; deportation by train to Auschwitz; selection in the camp; father, mother, and four siblings are murdered; assigned to forced labor: digging pits for murdered persons' bodies; hunger; cold; lice; Germans attempt to set residential barracks ablaze; saved by Red Army forces; typhus and hospitalization by Soviets in Germany; convalescence and moving to sighet; cared for by "the Joint" (American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee); organizing ahead of immigration to Eretz Israel; illegal immigration to Eretz Israel aboard the Geula; placed by the British in detention in Cyprus; life in the camp; immigration to Israel in July 1948.