Holocaust survivor recalls Warsaw Ghetto uprising

(14 Apr 2023)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Rishon LeTzion, Israel - 9 April 2023
1. Holocaust survivor Tova Gutstein, 90, inside her home
2. SOUNDBITE (Hebrew) Tova Gutstein, 90, Holocaust survivor:
“We'd go out through the sewers to the other side, the Aryan side (outside the ghetto), and we'd ask the Poles for some food. There were Poles who helped with what they could, gave some eggs, gave some flour, all kinds of things, some fruits, and vegetables. But there were Polish women who would see me and would tell me - get out of here you stinking Jew, if you come here again I will report you to the Gestapo.”
3. Close of Gutstein
4. SOUNDBITE (Hebrew) Tova Gutstein, 90, Holocaust survivor:
“I was on the other side, on the Aryan side (outside the ghetto), and I saw that German planes and tanks were bombing the ghetto. I was terribly afraid. The skies were red with fire. I saw buildings suddenly collapsing. Houses, concrete, houses were built of wood. I was terribly afraid.”
5. Various of Gutstein showing photos of herself after the war with her childhood friends
6. SOUNDBITE (Hebrew) Tova Gutstein, 90, Holocaust survivor:
“I came back to the ghetto. When I came back from the other side (outside the ghetto), all the houses, house by house, started to collapse from the bombings. Then I was left alone standing next to our house, it was completely destroyed, as other houses around.
I wandered about and looked for my mother and my siblings but couldn't find anyone.”
7. Various of Gutstein
8. SOUNDBITE (Hebrew) Tova Gutstein, 90, Holocaust survivor:
“There was a pickles factory (at the ghetto). They (Germans) bombed this factory, and I was standing at the window, and I watched, then I saw a man running out and he had a box of pickles on his back, and he was hit with a shrapnel in his face. As he was hit by the shrapnel, he fell, and his head split in two. I saw this when I was a six-year-old girl. To this day, over 80 years have passed, and I can’t forget it. I want to say that I go to sleep with this image, and I wake up with it. It's very hard for me to forget it.”
9. Certificates and photos on wall
10. SOUNDBITE (Hebrew) Tova Gutstein, 90, Holocaust survivor:
"I receive (financial) support from the government, but very little. They don't attend to citizens today in general, and disregard Holocaust survivors in particular, they don’t see them. We are nothing to them.”
11. Gutstein holding a small chimney sweep doll UPSOUND (Hebrew): “This is my doll, I have had it with me for 84 years. It's the only thing I've had since the end of the war.”
STORYLINE:
Tova Gutstein was born in Warsaw the year Adolf Hitler took power in Germany.

She was 10 years old when the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto launched the first act of collective defiance against the Nazis in Europe.

Now 90, she is among the few remaining witnesses of the ghetto uprising — and a vanishing generation of Holocaust survivors — as Israel marks the 80th anniversary of a revolt that has shaped its national consciousness.

On Monday night, Gutstein will be one of six Holocaust survivors honored by Israel as torch-lighters in its annual ceremony at Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial. She said the horrors are still seared in her mind.

Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Day, marked with solemn ceremonies in schools and workplaces nationwide, begins at sundown on Monday.

Theaters, concerts, cafes and restaurants close and television and radio broadcasts break into Holocaust commemorations.



Gutstein grew up in the ghetto. Her father was forced into a labor camp by the Nazis and never seen again.


















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