Archival Descriptions

Advanced query tips

There are several ways to be more specific in your search query:

"Phrase"
Search an exact match of your query, e.g. "Member lists"
+Phrase
Given word has to be in the result, e.g. +Gestapo
-Phrase
Exclude given word from search, e.g. -Gestapo

Use the following syntax to restrict the search to specific fields:

field:"phrase"
For instance, you can find all descriptions that have the phrase "Auschwitz Birkenau" in their titles by searching for title:"Auschwitz Birkenau".

The following fields are currently available:

  • identifier
  • title
  • creator
  • person
  • place
  • subject
  • address
Displaying items 26,981 to 27,000 of 33,375
Search result ordering
Language of Description: English

  1. Sarah B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sarah B., who was born in ?o?dz?, Poland in 1924. She recalls antisemitic graffiti; German invasion in September 1939; anti-Jewish measures; ghettoization in March 1940; pervasive hunger and sickness; her father's death from starvation in May 1942; forced labor; her mother's efforts to raise their spirits; her sister receiving extra food after singing for H?ayim Rumkowski; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; learning of the crematoria; transfer to Ludwigshafen, then Unterlu?ss; slave labor; transfer to Bergen-Belsen; assistance from other prisoners en route; surgery on...

  2. Libiena E. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Libiena E., who was born in Nová Paka, Czechoslovakia (presently Czech Republic) in 1923, the youngest of five children. She recounts her family moving to Pardubice; attending school; their move to Prague in 1935; German occupation in 1939; surprise when her parents informed them they were Jewish; an uncle's arrest by the Gestapo (they never saw him again); anti-Jewish restrictions; expulsion from school; a non-Jewish teacher's offer to remain; choosing to work; removing her star to attend movies and swim; deportation with her parents to the Łódź ghetto; working in...

  3. Reuven L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Reuven L., who was born in Kaunas, Lithuania in 1927. He describes his father's prominence as a lawyer and his mother's as a gynecologist; his father's assistance to Jewish refugees from Germany and Poland; Soviet occupation; his father's arrest as a capitalist; Lithuanians killing Jews after Germany invaded the Soviet Union prior to entering Kaunas; ghettoization; forced labor at the airport, hunger, and killings; his parents arranging their escape with assistance from a priest; hiding in a monastery, then, using false papers, on a farm and with a Lithuanian woman; f...

  4. Jack K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Jack K., who was born in Wieliczka, Poland in 1924, the oldest of seven children. He recalls cordial relations with non-Jews until 1936; attending yeshiva and public school in Krako?w until 1939; German invasion; ghettoization and formation of a Judenrat; finding his father's body after a mass murder; the influx of Jews from Krako?w to Wieliczka; forced labor at degrading tasks; transfer to Pustko?w; daily hangings; escape to Wieliczka; hiding; and working to obtain food for his siblings. Mr. K. recounts incidents in the Krako?w ghetto, Wieliczka, P?aszo?w, and anothe...

  6. Bill G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Bill G., who was born in Satu Mare, Romania in 1930. He recalls his large and close, extended family; pervasive antisemitism; Hungarian occupation in 1940; anti-Jewish measures; his parents' disbelief that anything could happen to them; his older brother moving to Budapest; German occupation in 1944; ghettoization; deportation with his parents and sister; German guards taking over from Hungarians in Kos?ice; separation from his family in Birkenau (he never saw his mother again); his initial psychological trauma; help from prisoners in adjusting; his decision to be men...

  7. Esther S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Esther S., who was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1918 to a family of five children. She describes their move to Paris in 1927; their orthodox home; antisemitic incidents at school; her brother's deportation in 1941; her father placing her niece with nuns and her nephew in a school in Brive-la-Gaillarde (they survived); hiding with her parents and sister in Donzenac for two years; obtaining false papers; her parents' arrest; voluntarily accompanying them with her sister; transfer to Drancy, via Brive and Pe?rigueux; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; separation from her pa...

  8. Avram-Albert G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Avram-Albert G., who was born in Athens, Greece. He recalls joining EAM (National Liberation Front) while in high school; Italian invasion; helping the Greek police as a member of a national youth organization; hiding with his family in several locations in Athens; assistance from EAM; and involvement in the civil war. Mr. G. notes the leadership of Archbishop Damaske?nos and the police chief, Angelos Evert, in saving Athen's Jews; becoming a poet (he reads a poem dedicated to all ethnic groups and peace); and his involvement in the Athens Jewish community.

  9. Edit K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Edit K., who was born in Ústí nad Labem, Czechoslovakia in 1926, the younger of two sisters in an affluent, assimilated family. She recounts attending a Czech school; cordial relations with non-Jews; visiting grandparents in Teplice; moving to Prague in September 1938; German invasion in March 1939; anti-Jewish restrictions, including expulsion from school; deportation with her family to the Łódź ghetto in fall 1941; working in a carpet factory; public execution of an escapee; receiving letters from her boyfriend who was in Theresienstadt; her father's deportation...

  10. Kristine K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Kristine K., who was born in L?vov, Poland in 1935. She recounts their affluence; her brother's birth; Soviet occupation; confiscation of the family business; German invasion; hiding with her brother during round-ups; ghettoization; her father organizing their escape with others by digging a tunnel to the sewers; sewer workers who agreed to help them; escape with her parents, brother, and others to the sewers in June 1943; moving several times within the sewers; one worker, Socha, consistently helping them, even after they had no funds; her uncle's drowning death; her...

  11. Helen R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Helen R., who was born in Krako?w, Poland in 1925. She recalls an idyllic childhood; family religious observances; German invasion; ghettoization in 1941; her father's deportation; gradual liquidation of the ghetto; hiding her mother with a Polish friend; forced labor; escaping to P?aszo?w to avoid deportation; working as a housekeeper for the camp Kommandant, Amon Goeth; frequent humiliation and beatings by Goeth; observing his arbitrary, sadistic treatment of prisoners; being comforted by Oskar Schindler and the other housekeeper; visiting her mother and sisters in ...

  13. Henry W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Henry W., who was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany in 1927. He recounts moving to Mainz in 1929; his sister's birth in 1933; returning to Frankfurt in 1934; emigration to Paris in 1935; persecution as a foreigner and German; outbreak of war in 1939; his father's internment as an enemy alien; his bar mitzvah in 1940 (his father could not attend); German invasion in May 1940; escaping with his family to unoccupied France; living in Chartre, Bellac, and Limoges; his father's visits (he was detained nearby); hiding when non-Jewish neighbors warned them of German raids; ...

  14. Maria S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Maria S., a Romani, who was born in Medzev, Czechoslovakia in 1929. She recounts her mother's death during her birth; living with her grandmother in Košice; deportation with her grandmother and local Jews to Komárno, then to Theresienstadt, Ravensbrück, and Buchenwald; slave labor; losing her wooden shoes and her grandmother obtaining another pair for her; her grandmother's death; frequently crying for her; being subjected to medical experiments; a Romani man giving her a potato (his wife and children were killed in Auschwitz); extreme debilitation from typhus; lib...

  15. Ivan Š. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ivan Š., who was born in Novi Sad, Yugoslavia in 1924. He recounts his parents' family histories; active participation in Hashomer Hatzair, including attending summer camp; learning Hebrew from his grandfather; joining SKOJ, a communist youth group, while attending technical high school; helping to organize a school strike in 1940; Hungarian occupation in April 1941; shootings of many Serbs; his father's death in Budapest in July; difficulty obtaining permission to attend his funeral in Budapest; arrest in October as a member of SKOJ; refusing to admit anything under...

  16. Hilda G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Hilda G., who was born in Germany (presently Lithuania) and raised in Memel (presently Klaipe?da). She recalls her father's early death; her brother's emigration to Palestine in 1939; German invasion; fleeing to relatives in Kaunas; German invasion; ghettoization; forced labor with her sister at the airport; exchanging possessions with peasants for food; an older Wehrmacht soldier providing them with easier work and extra food; transfer to Stutthof with her mother and sister; transfer to a slave labor camp; separation from her sister (she never saw her again); her mot...

  17. Léon H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Léon H., a Catholic, who was born in Verviers, Belgium in 1918. He recalls the family's bakery; military service in 1940; deserting rather than surrendering; returning home; joining the Resistance; an encounter with collaborators; blowing up electrical lines; arrest on May 22, 1942; four months solitary confinement in the Citadelle de Liège; transfer to Bochum; forced factory labor; sabotaging the work; praying with other prisoners; transfer with other French and Belgian "Nacht und Nebel" prisoners to Esterwegen after four months; a friend sharing bread with him whe...

  18. Alice H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Alice H., who was born in Warsaw, Poland. She recounts her family's emphasis on education; moving to Krako?w in 1937; marriage; German invasion; unsuccessfully attempting to flee East; joining her family in Warsaw; ghettoization; overcrowding and starvation; slave labor outside the ghetto; her father's death; her mother's deportation (she never saw her again); returning to the ghetto after escaping from a deportation train; her husband obtaining false papers and arranging their escape through his acquaintances in the Polish underground; living as Poles outside the ghe...

  19. Isaiah W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rabbi Isaiah W., who was born in Bad Kissingen, Germany in 1915, to a rabbinical family with a long German history. He recalls attending gymnasium in Wu?rzburg; rabbinical studies in Tels?iai and Berlin; his father's death in 1935; appointment to the rabbinate in Bad Kissingen, then a joint appointment in Ansbach; a summer visit to Palestine in 1938; being forced to watch the synagogue burn during Kristallnacht; imprisonment in Wu?rzburg; transfer to Dachau; humiliating exercises, long appells, and inadequate food; release after a few weeks provided he leave Germany; ...

  20. Raquel F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Raquel F., who was born in ?o?dz?, Poland in 1928. She recalls attending a Jewish school; antisemitic harassment by Polish children; her father's emigration to Argentina in 1938; German invasion; ghettoization; forced factory labor with her mother; joining a Zionist youth group; sharing food and caring for each other; deportation to Auschwitz in August 1944; separation from her mother and brother; remaining with a friend; their transfer to another camp; slave labor manufacturing airplane radios; Allied bombings; walking to Bergen-Belsen; liberation by British troops; ...