Frieda Roos-van Hessen & Shoah Project

Frieda Roos-van Hessen's testimony is one of nearly 52,000 visual history testimonies of survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust which have been archived by the USC Shoah Foundation Institute. Shoah, meaning catastrophe, is the Jewish word for Holocaust.

Director Steven Spielberg was the impetus behind the Shoah Foundation's video archive in 1994 after filming Schindler's List the previous year in Poland. His mission was to preserve the testimony of Holocaust survivors for future generations. Many of the interviews are with Holocaust survivors, including Jews, Sinti and Roma, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses and political prisoners. The archive also includes interviews with rescuers, liberators, members of aid organizations, eyewitnesses, and participants in war crimes trials. In all, about 52,000 testimonies from 52 countries and 32 languages.

Frieda van Hessen has a captivating story. She was one of Holland's foremost concert and opera singers. At 19, she sang the lead for the Dutch version of Walt Disney's Snow White. At 24, she was the soloist in a performance of Verdi's Requiem for the Dutch Royal Family. Frieda van Hessen won the Grande Diplome at the World Contest in Geneva, Switzerland where she was judged one of the eight best female singers in the world. The future could not have seemed brighter until she was forced into hiding when the Nazis invaded Holland during World War II.

Today, this 92-plus-year-old woman lives to tell about her hiding, mircaculous escapes, and determination to survive some of the worst horrors this world has ever seen.

• For information about the Shoah Project, see http://college.usc.edu/vhi/
• For information about Frieda Roos-van Hessen, see www.friedaslife.com
• For information about her book Life in the Shadow of the Swastika, see www.readingup.com

Publisher, Thomas White, of Harvest Day Books calls Frieda's book Life in the Shadow of the Swastika amazing! "It chronicles her four-and-a-half years of hiding including her eight incredible escapes from the hands of the Nazis. When I first read her manuscript, I was numb for two days. Incredible."

Comments

[tracey dixon]

i just saw you on cbn and i just had to tell how beautiful you are , i am so proud to have you as my sister in christ, MANY MANY BLESSING TO YOU

[Timothy O'Connell]

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to you on the television today, speaking about your life story.

Thank you

Timothy

[Joe]

Frieda you are amazing! I was so touched by your story on the 700 Club that I had to look up your blog that you mentioned during the segment. Your story is fascinating, and the way that you were led to faith in Jesus Christ as an end result to your whole ordeal is a touching and remarkable story. God truly does work in mysterious ways, and when they say that God can bring good out of the most horrible situations, your coming to accept Jesus as your savior and now inspiring countless people is proof of that. God bless you Frieda, I look forward to reading your book.
Best regards,
Joe