Alongside Lanka's testimony

Historical Research

Detailed research that cross-references her recorded account — documents, places, dates, and context, chapter by chapter.

Family archive · Research notes

Begin research →Lanka's Story

Chapters

  1. 01Interwar Subcarpathian Rus, Hungarian Annexation, and Hungarian Rule Before the German Occupation (c. 1900s to March 18, 1944)From Lanka Ilkows Voice/Vision interview 1900s to March 18, 1944
  2. 02German Occupation, Hungarian Ghettoization, Deportation, and Arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau (March to Late May 1944)Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive, interviewed by Dr. Sidney Bolkosky, March to Late May 1944. Large historical deep five with major scholarship from Randolph Braham's The Politics of Genocide, the Auschwitz Chronicle compiled by Danuta Czech, and the survivor literature. Other survivor testimonies of matching dates and locations all named in the body of work.
  3. 03Auschwitz-Birkenau, Sector BIIc, Late May to October 1944From Lanka Ilkows Voice/Vision interview late May to October 1944.
  4. 04Hundsfeld and Gross-Rosen, autumn 1944 to February 1945Gross-Rosen Museum, "Subcamps of KL Gross-Rosen"; Yad Vashem, Gross-Rosen encyclopedia entry; Yad Vashem Shoah Resource Center, Gross-Rosen overview; Holocaust Historical Society, Gross-Rosen; Liberation Route Europe, Gross-Rosen; ResearchGate abstract of the USHMM Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, "Gross-Rosen Subcamp System"; recensio.net and H-Soz-Kult reviews of Andrea Rudorff, Frauen in den Außenlagern des Konzentrationslagers Groß-Rosen; Rudorff, "Reimagining the Gray Zone" (record at hds.hebis.de); USHMM Encyclopedia entries (via Project MUSE) on Kratzau and Grünberg; Wikipedia, "List of subcamps of Gross-Rosen" and "Psie Pole"; Gross-Rosen (classicistranieri mirror); In re Holocaust Victim Assets Litigation (; Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive, University of Michigan-Dearborn (interviews page); EHRI Portal, Breslau-Hundsfeld; USHMM oral history summary for Charlotte Rudner; Wikipedia, "Eva Erben"; Frank Falla Archive, Gross-Rosen; Holocaust Research Project, Auschwitz evacuation; bpb.de, January 1945 Auschwitz death march; National WWII Museum, Sonderkommando uprising; Jewish Virtual Library, Auschwitz revolt; Wikipedia, "Sandomierz–Silesian offensive" and "Siege of Breslau"; Strategemata, "Festung Breslau"; Traces of War, siege of Breslau; Prisma, "Die Kinder der Flucht"; Wratislavia.net, German account of the siege; Wikipedia, "Uzhhorod" and "Liberation Day (Ukraine)"; Auschwitz Memorial, Neustadt subcamp.
  5. 05Gross-Rosen to Mauthausen to Bergen-Belsen to Departure (February to Summer 1945)Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive, interviewed by Dr. Sidney Bolkosky. Archival and institutional sources: the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's Holocaust Encyclopedia entries on Bergen-Belsen, Mauthausen, Gross-Rosen, and the death marches; the Mauthausen Memorial's published research; the Gross-Rosen Museum's histories; the Arolsen Archives; the Imperial War Museum's Bergen-Belsen collections, including Lieutenant-Colonel Gonin's account; and the Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive. Scholarly works: Eberhard Kolb, Bergen-Belsen: From "Detention Camp" to Concentration Camp; Joanne Reilly, Belsen: The Liberation of a Concentration Camp; Ben Shephard, After Daybreak; Daniel Blatman, The Death Marches; Nikolaus Wachsmann, KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps; Hans Maršálek, Die Geschichte des Konzentrationslagers Mauthausen; and Raymond Phillips, ed., Trial of Josef Kramer and Forty-Four Others (The Belsen Trial). Survivor and witness testimony: Hanna Lévy-Hass, Inside Belsen; Renata Laqueur's Bergen-Belsen Diary; Rabbi Leslie Hardman's The Survivors; and Folke Bernadotte's The Curtain Falls for the Swedish Red Cross rescue.
  6. 06Aftermath, Sweden, and Emigration (April 1945 to December 1951)The sources are the Lanka Ilkow interview transcript (Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive, University of Michigan–Dearborn, interviews of 12 and 19 October 1991); her typed German statement "Schilderung des Verfolgungsvorganges"; Ben Shephard, After Daybreak: The Liberation of Belsen, 1945; Joanne Reilly, Belsen: The Liberation of a Concentration Camp; Dan Stone, The Liberation of the Camps; Hagit Lavsky, New Beginnings: Holocaust Survivors in Bergen-Belsen and the British Zone in Germany, 1945–1950; Mark Wyman, DP: Europe's Displaced Persons, 1945–1951; Arieh Kochavi, Post-Holocaust Politics; Leonard Dinnerstein, America and the Survivors of the Holocaust; Yehuda Bauer, Out of the Ashes; Steven Koblik, The Stones Cry Out: Sweden's Response to the Persecution of the Jews, 1933–1945; Paul Levine, From Indifference to Activism; Sune Persson's work on Folke Bernadotte and the White Buses; Ingrid Lomfors, Förlorad barndom – återvunnet liv; Hédi Fried, Fragments of Life; Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, Inherit the Truth; Hanna Lévy-Hass, Inside Belsen; Paul Robert Magocsi, The Shaping of a National Identity: Subcarpathian Rus', 1848–1948; Randolph Braham, The Politics of Genocide; Zoë Waxman, Women in the Holocaust, and the scholarship of Marlene Heinemann and Sybil Milton on women's "camp families"; the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Holocaust Encyclopedia entries on Bergen-Belsen, Displaced Persons, and Sweden; and Imperial War Museum materials on the liberation of Belsen.