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Displaying items 5,241 to 5,260 of 10,510
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Item type: Archival Descriptions

  1. Henry R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Henry R., who was born in 1924 and drafted into the United States military. He recalls serving in the 20th Armored Division; landing in Le Havre and moving through Belgium and Holland into Germany; arriving at Dachau immediately after troops from his unit had liberated it; first seeing a boxcar filled with corpses; speaking Yiddish to a few of the prisoners; being overwhelmed by the condition of the prisoners, as were all his fellow soldiers; not being able to process what he saw for days; difficulty still conceiving what he witnessed; and his involvement in Holocaust...

  2. Newton S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Newton S., a non-Jew, who was an American soldier during World War II. He tells of his military training and preparations for combat in 1943-1944; his arrival in England and participation in the Battle of the Bulge; his experience in a POW camp near Hanover; his postwar stay in a French field camp, where he was helped by a doctor whom he met again years later in New Haven; and the difficulty of resistance in the camps.

  3. Philip P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Phillip P., who was born in approximately 1922 and served in the United States Army. He recounts military draft in 1942; deployment to England in 1943; arrival on Omaha Beach on D-Day; crossing through France into Germany; the Battle of the Bulge; liberating Leipzig, and a nearby camp; emaciated prisoners; many corpses; and moving south. He notes that prior to this, he had been skeptical when hearing about concentration camps, but realizing for what he had been fighting having liberated a camp. He shows photographs.

  4. Lothar P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Lothar P., an ethnic German and Roman Catholic, who was born in Liberec, Czechoslovakia in 1932. He recalls living in Vratislavice; attending a German school; his father's exemption from military service due to his essential job; a German child whose mother was in the SS at Auschwitz living with them; overhearing a conversation between the SS woman and her friend expressing fear of retribution for what they were doing; his father expressing his shame to be German after hearing what was happening; German retreat; Allied bombardments; Soviet troops looting and raping; p...

  5. Ann S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ann S., who was born in Rome, Italy in 1928. She recalls her family had lived in Italy for seven generations; Jewish holidays in a large, extended family; expulsion from school in 1938 due to anti-Jewish laws; German occupation; one brother escaping; escaping with her parents and sister to a mountain village; her other brother later joining them; attending school; returning to Rome after the war; reunion with her brother; working as a translator for the United States military; marriage to an American in 1948; and emigration to the United States. Ms. S. notes she seldo...

  6. Martin S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Martin S., who was born in Bronx, New York in 1922 and served in the United States military as a radio repair man in Europe during World War II. He recounts passing outside of Buchenwald immediately prior to its liberation and observing thousands of skeletal prisoners in striped uniforms as well as the pervasive stench of dead bodies. Although his unit left the next day, having no exposure to the prisoners except briefly observing them twice, Mr. S. notes it was one of his most traumatic experiences.

  7. Sam A. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sam A., who was born in 1921 and served with the United States Army 21st Armored Infantry Battalion in World War II. He recounts approaching Mauthausen concentration camp on May 5, 1941, after German troops had left; the pervasive odor; gas chambers; pits filled with naked bodies; ovens with rollers to deliver bodies in an assembly line; and emaciated, dazed inmates. Mr. A. recalls three months of rotating guard duty at the camp while billeted in Linz; gradual improvement in the inmates' condition after treatment by military medical units; and realizing later that the...

  8. Merle W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Merle W., who was a lieutenant in the United States Army during World War II. He recalls serving in North Africa, Italy, and the Battle of the Bulge; entering Nordhausen with no prior knowledge of it; many corpses exhibiting signs of starvation; the joy of the surviving prisoners; his commander requiring German men to bury the corpses and women and children to watch; difficulty believing the treatment of the Jews; and his unit taking no prisoners for some time afterward as a result of their anger. Mr. W. expresses his belief that similar events will recur. He shows ph...

  9. William J. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of William J., who was born in the United States in 1921. He recounts military draft in 1944; entering Europe through Scotland in January 1945; serving in the 90th Infantry division of the Third Army; liberating Flossenbu?rg on April 28, 1945; shock at the dead and dying inmates, their emaciated state, and the living conditions; being instructed not to share their rations with the prisoners; the high prisoner death rate; compelling local residents to bury the dead; leaving after three days; moving through Germany and Czechoslovakia; handling German POWs; assignment after...

  10. John M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of John M., who was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1926. He recalls enlisting in the United States military; training as a radio operator; assignment to the XVIII Airborne Corps; and entering Ludwigslust concentration camp shortly after its liberation by the 82nd Airborne Division. He discusses having only two vivid memories: two emaciated prisoners (nothing but skin and bone) in striped uniforms with shaved heads lying by the gate, barely alive; and a building filled with corpses in total disarray emitting an incredible odor. He recounts being stunned; feeling totally ina...

  11. Maurice F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Maurice F., who served in the United States military, 2nd Infantry Regiment, in a medical detachment from 1943 to 1945. He recalls encountering a group of approximately seventy-five emaciated women in Eggenfelden, who related to him that they had been on a death march; their sense of hopelessness; their desire for Jewish contact (he spoke to them in Yiddish); his unit and local people disinterring bodies of others from their group and reburying them in coffins; his special bond with the women because he was Jewish; and some postwar correspondence. He notes sending pho...

  12. Max L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Max L., who was born in Wuppertal, Germany in 1921, the younger of two children. He recounts attending public and Hebrew schools; antisemitic harassment; participating in a Jewish scout group; anti-Jewish boycotts and restrictions; his bar mitzvah in 1934, the last time his extended family was together; his sister's emigration to the United States in 1936; his emigration in 1937; his parents' arrival in 1938; military draft in 1942; training as a dental technician; marriage; and the births of two children. Mr. L. discusses planning a ten-day visit to Germany in 1987; ...

  13. Milton G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Milton G., who was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1918. He recalls military draft in 1943; training as a medic; landing in France in January 1945; serving in the 65th Division; moving through France and Germany; entering Mauthausen; transporting debilitated prisoners to a hospital in Linz; speaking Yiddish to some of the prisoners; leaving about thirty-six hours later; attending Rosh ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur services in Salzburg conducted by former Mauthausen prisoners when the war was over; and returning home in winter 1946. He discusses sharing his experiences wit...

  14. Fred S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Fred S., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1924. He recalls his family's poverty; attending gymnasium; antisemitic harassment; membership in Betar; the Anschluss; antisemitic harassment in the streets; his sister's emigration to the United States in May 1938; he and his parents joining her in June; his brother's emigration via Italy in August; attending high school; military draft in 1943; antisemitism in basic training; service in the Pacific; hospitalization after being wounded; returning home; discharge in August 1945; marriage in 1951; his business career; and vi...

  15. Gerhard B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Gerhard B., a Romani. He recalls moving with his family from Silesia to the Sudentenland in 1937 or 1938; posing as non-Romanies (they dyed their hair red) as they performed in many places until 1942; arrest in Karlsbad in 1942; escaping to hide in Austria and Bavaria; and receiving assistance from German performers. Mr. B. describes fleeing from Nazi authorities with his sister and her baby, walking 400 kilometers during the night, hiding by day, and receiving help from many Czechs. He discusses his strong Romani identity; helpfulness of Jews to Romanies; conveying h...

  16. Alexander G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Alexander G., who was born in Nové Mesto nad Vahom, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (presently Slovakia) in 1914, one of four children. He recounts his father leaving when he was only a year and a half; their abject poverty; joining his brother in Bratislava in 1928 as a barber's apprentice; playing on a Maccabi soccer team; military draft in 1936; postings in Piešt̕any and Solivar; discharge in 1939; formation of the Slovak state which promulgated anti-Jewish laws; arrest by Hlinka guards in 1942; incarceration in Žilina and Vhyne; working as a barber; liberation by par...

  17. Maximilian K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Maximilian K., who was born in Prievidza, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (presently Slovakia) in 1915. He recalls military service from 1937 to 1939; forced labor in Nováky and other locations from 1942 to 1944; marriage in 1944; paying non-Jews to hide him, his wife, and parents; arrest by the Hlinka guard; deportation to Sered; evacuation by train; escaping during an Allied bombing (his wife and parents remained behind); hiding in a friend's attic and in the mountains; liberation by Soviet troops; returning home; reunion with his wife and parents; not being able to recl...

  18. Arnold K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Arnold K., who was born in 1923. He recounts enlisting in the United States military when he was nineteen; serving in the Eighth Air Force; visiting Dachau a month after its liberation, having no knowledge of the Holocaust; a pervasive stench; piles of clothing and shoes; and reciting the Kaddish. Mr. K. notes it was many years later that he fully understood what he had seen.

  19. August D. Holocaust testimonies

    Videotape testimony of August D., a Romani, who was born in 1914. He recalls serving in the German military in Braunschweig; discharge in 1938 due to anti-Romani laws; arrest on July 14; transfer from Hannover to Sachsenhausen; slave labor in a Heinkel factory; transfer to Dachau after thirty months; liberation in Czechoslovakia; learning his parents and four siblings had perished in Auschwitz; his desire to forget these experiences and inability to do so; and receiving compensation for seven years in concentration camps at the rate of five marks per day. Mr. D.'s sons and others discuss th...

  20. Lewis S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Lewis S., who was born in London, England in 1911 and emigrated to New York with his family in 1917. He recalls becoming a dental technician; serving in the military during the war in that capacity; obtaining a job in 1945 working in ORT schools in displaced persons camps in Europe to train dental technicians; working through UNRRA; living in Pasing, Germany; establishing many schools including in Feldafing, Landsberg, and Heidelberg; improving diet and conditions in DP camps whenever he could; meeting Germans who claimed they knew nothing of concentration camps in sp...