Archival Descriptions

Displaying items 541 to 560 of 4,487
Language of Description: English
Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
  1. Livija A. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Livija A., who was born in Subotica, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in 1917 to a Jewish father and Catholic mother. She recounts being raised as a Catholic; celebrating Passover with her father's family in Budapest; her father changing his name to an obviously Serb one; attending architecture school beginning in 1936; expulsion as a Jew in 1941; her parents' eviction; living in Belgrade; working for a man who knew she was Jewish; her father's employment by friends; his death in an accident; hiding Jewish friends of her parents (one committed suicide when they were caught, ...

  2. Simon A. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Simon A., who was born in Polichna, Poland in 1936, one of nine children. He recalls his family's orthodoxy; an older brother's emigration to Bolivia; German invasion; his father's conscription for forced labor; expulsion from their home; his father's return; escaping a round-up by hiding with non-Jewish neighbors; living in forests and with non-Jewish farmers in stables and barns; assistance from an impoverished Communist family; two older brothers seeking food nightly and not returning (they never saw them again); assistance from a former Jewish neighbor who had esc...

  3. Bella B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Bella B., who was born in Piotrko?w, Poland in 1920. Mrs. B. describes her family; the German invasion; isolation and persecution of the Jews; and the formation of the ghetto, which she escaped from with family members by hiding in a bunker. She recalls the birth of her sister's baby in the bunker; returning to the ghetto; separation from her brother whom she never saw again; her brother-in-law's efforts to keep the newly born child hidden; learning about the mass shooting of all the young men in a nearby woods; and deportation to Skarz?ysko-Kamienna. Mrs. S. recounts...

  4. Xavier D. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Xavier D., a Catholic, who was born in Bertrix, Belgium in 1925. He recalls attending boarding school; his father's death in 1937; leaving for France with his family in 1940; remaining in Libourne for two months; returning home; billeting of German soldiers in their house; joining the Resistance with his brother; obtaining false papers as a student to avoid forced labor in Germany; hiding; being arrested with his brother for underground activities; imprisonment in Charleville and Amou; their deportation to Buchenwald in June 1944; receiving extra food from Scandinavia...

  5. Gustav S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Gustav S., who was born in a Romanian village near Chernivt︠s︡i in 1925, the oldest of three children. He recalls antisemitic harassment in the local school; attending school in Chernivt︠s︡i; Soviet occupation; confiscation of his family's house and business; their move to Chernivt︠s︡i in 1940; German and Romanian invasion in June 1941; anti-Jewish violence and restrictions; ghettoization; deportation to a former military barrack near Ataki in November 1941; entering the Mogilev-Podolskyi ghetto; hospitalization for typus for several months; his mother's death; his yo...

  6. Halina Z. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Halina Z., who was born in ?o?dz?, Poland in 1928. She describes growing up in an affluent home with two sisters; her father's dedication to the family; attending a private high school; the arrival of the Germans; and the ensuing deterioration which led her parents to decide to move the family to her mother's hometown of Chrzano?w, where conditions were better. Mrs. Z. recalls their two years in Chrzano?w; her father's escape to the Soviet Union where he was imprisoned for a year; his return as a changed person; obtaining false papers; and arranging for a customer to ...

  7. Joan B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Joan B., who was born in Mainz, Germany. She describes the growth of antisemitism in Nazi Germany; Kristallnacht, which resulted in the deaths of her father and mother; and her experiences as a slave laborer in Theresienstadt, where her first husband and entire immediate family perished. She also describes Auschwitz; various slave labor camps in Germany; and Bergen-Belsen, from which she was liberated. Other topics include the ways in which she attempted to undermine the German war effort while in concentration and labor camps; her postwar life in Belsen, where she wo...

  8. Edith P. edited testimony

    Edith P., a survivor from eastern Czechoslovakia, relates her wartime experiences in an emotionally powerful and unusually poetic way. She tells of her family's evacuation to a brick factory, their train journey to Auschwitz, and their separation upon arrival. She describes her life in Auschwitz and later in Salzwedel, where she worked as a cook for the SS. Ms. P. recounts the joy of liberation by American soldiers and concludes by expressing her distress at her own, and the world's complacency while suffering and inhumanity continue.

  9. Sofiia Y. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sofiia Y., who was born in Raygorodok, Ukraine in 1922. She recalls attending schools in Yanushpolʹ and Tetërka; Soviet authorities destroying the local synagogue; her brother's death during the famine; German invasion; forced labor; forced relocation into dilapidated apartments; non-Jewish friends bringing them food; escaping a mass shooting in September 1941 with assistance from non-Jews; hiding for two days; learning her parents had survived; slave labor clearing snow from roads; she and her father escaping liquidation of all the Jews in a mass killing (her mother...

  10. Richard R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Richard R., who was born in Radom, Poland in 1935. He recalls his family's affluent life in Zwolen?; his father's position as head of the hospital in Radom; German invasion; fleeing east with his parents; living under Soviet occupation in Li?u?boml?; German invasion; antisemitic violence; going into hiding five weeks later with a farmer; leaving after thirteen months when their money ran out; their arrest; transport to the Lublin ghetto, then to a labor camp; being smuggled out by Polish partisans because they needed a doctor; living with his mother on a farm disguise...

  11. Morris K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Morris K., who was born in Kaunas, Lithuania in 1922. He recalls his father's successful business; entering college in 1940; Soviet occupation; German invasion in June 1941; anti-Jewish violence; ghettoization; mass killings, including some relatives; forced labor at a military airfield; participation in the underground; one brother being captured, assigned to disinter bodies from mass graves, escaping into the ghetto, and then to the partisans (he survived); transfer with his parents and another brother to Kauen-Schanzen; becoming friendly with his future wife; spont...

  12. Phyllis S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Phyllis S., who was born in Chrzano?w, Poland in 1927. She recalls her two sisters and brother; manifestations of antisemitism in the late 1930s; German invasion in 1939; ghettoization; her brother's deportation in 1940; her deportation to Struthof in 1941; forced labor in a textile factory; transfer to Flossenbu?rg in 1943, then to Bergen-Belsen in February 1945; stealing food to survive; and liberation by British troops. Mrs. S. describes hospitalization for several months; living in Feldafing; learning her brother was alive in Austria; marriage in 1948; her son's b...

  13. Jan K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Jan K., a non-Jewish Pole, who was born in ?o?dz?, Poland in 1914. He recalls working as a diplomatic courier for the Polish government in exile during the war; receiving messages from Jewish leaders who wanted the Polish government in London and the Allies to know what was happening to Jews in Poland; secretly entering the Warsaw ghetto with Leon Feiner, a Bund leader, as his guide; returning a second time; Feiner arranging for him to be smuggled into a camp; traveling to a village via Lublin; being provided with a guard's uniform by his guide; becoming overwhelmed b...

  14. Serge L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Serge L., who was born in Skierniewice, Poland in 1922. He recounts his family's communist background; antisemitic incidents; emigrating to Paris in 1936; the outbreak of war in 1939; enlistment in the army (he was not mobilized); resistance activities; deportation with his brother to Beaune-la-Rolande on May 14, 1941; escaping to Paris with assistance from a French woman; voluntarily returning to Beaune-la-Rolande to protect his father; deportation to Auschwitz on June 28, 1942; building the I.G. Farben Buna factory in Monowitz; assistance from a Polish doctor in the...

  15. Helen N. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Helen N., who was born in Rona de Sus, Romania in 1921, one of eleven children. She recalls her family's traditional religious life; working in Sa?pi?nt?a as a dressmaker; violent Hungarian soldiers; food shortages; declining an offer to be hidden by friends; ghettoization with her parents, one sister, and brother in Oradea; their deportation to Auschwitz; separation from her parents (she never saw them again); efforts to remain with her sister; her brother's instructions to eat non-kosher food in order to survive (she never saw him again); being beaten for having a n...

  16. Fanny K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Fanny K., who was born in Pilipets, Czechoslovakia in 1922. She recalls her father traveling as a shochet; many older brothers and sisters; Hungarian occupation; her brothers' draft into Hungarian labor battalions; regulations forbidding Jews to run stores; helping her sister secretly run a store; brief arrest; hiding with relatives in another town; returning home and hiding; ghettoization; a forced march to Khust; deportation to Auschwitz; separation from everyone but one sister; seeing her brother once from a distance; slave labor in a weaving mill; attempting to ob...

  17. Hermine M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Hermine M., who was born in a small town in Czechoslovakia, one of eight children. She recalls attending Czech school; visiting relatives in Antwerp; Germany's occupation of the Sudetenland; her parents' decision that she remain in Belgium; German invasion; fleeing to Brussels; separation from her relatives because of her Czech citizenship; a Czech family befriending her and bringing her with them to a French town near the Spanish border; being placed in a convent by the Czech underground; arrest and incarceration in Aix-en-Provence; hospitalization for appendicitis; ...

  18. Zdenka K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Zdenka K., who was born in Rochov, Czechoslovakia in 1922. She recalls forced relocation with her parents and sister to Kladno in 1942; their deportation to Theresienstadt; forced labor; receiving extra food from their Christian aunt; their train transport to Raasiku, Estonia; separation from their parents (they never saw them again); slave labor in Ja?gala and Kohtla-Ja?rve; incarceration in Tallinn and Reval; cleaning up bombing rubble; evacuation to a site in the woods, then another camp; becoming numb due to arduous conditions, starvation, and beatings; ship trans...

  19. Frances L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Frances L., who served in the United States Army Nurses Corps beginning in July 1941. She recalls postings in Oran, Algeria in the fall of 1942 via Birmingham, England, then Palermo, Italy; attending a dance hosted by General Patton; caring for wounded soldiers, including Germans, behind 7th Army lines in Italy, France and Germany; finding American soldiers who had been tortured and mutilated; and volunteering to administer anti-typhus injections in Dachau two weeks after its liberation. Mrs. L. describes the complete debilitation of the inmates; difficulty injecting ...