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 27,121 to 27,140 of 33,375
Search result ordering
Language of Description: English

  1. Max B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Max B., who was born in ?uko?w, Poland in 1918, the fifth of seven children. He recounts his family's relative affluence; German invasion; hiding; capture with two brothers; transfer to Siedlce; one brother's escape; transfer to We?gro?w; escaping with his other brother; returning home; deportation with one brother to Rogoznica; his parents bribing officials for their release; ghettoization; his sister's deportation; one brother's death while trying to escape; hiding with his family during round-ups; forced labor; escaping from a round-up; returning to the ghetto; dep...

  2. Joseph K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Joseph K., who was born in a Polish village near Iwye (presently Iŭe, Belarus), one of five children. He recalls attending the Tarbut school in Iwye (only five out of sixty classmates survived); Soviet occupation; his bar mitzvah in 1939; German invasion in 1941; ghettoization in Iwye; a mass shooting of 2,500 Jews; his father bribing a guard to let them go to Lida; brief imprisonment; release to the Lida ghetto; slave labor on the railroad; his mother arranging his and his brothers' escape to the partisans; joining Tuvia Bielski's brigade; fleeing German attacks; li...

  3. Pierre T. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Pierre T., a non-Jew, who was born in Brittany, France, in 1909. Mr. T. recounts serving as chief purser on the ocean liner Normandie in 1939; his capture at the defeat of the French army in 1940; escaping to join his family in Cha?teaubriant; shock at the execution of twenty-seven townsmen; obtaining a job which enabled him to issue false documents; and serving the Resistance as a guide for downed Allied fliers. He recalls his arrest in January 1944; Gestapo interrogations and torture; being transported naked (to deter escape attempts) in overcrowded boxcars to Mauth...

  4. Gisela W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Gisela W., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1925. She recalls her family's wealthy, assimilated life; antisemitic vandalism; attending a private girls' school; expulsion as a Jew; attending the American school; living with an uncle in the Hague (her brother had been sent to England); visiting family in Stuttgart; living with an aunt in Switzerland; staying in a hotel in Lugano; moving with her parents to Amsterdam in April 1939; attending Dutch school; German invasion; obtaining permission to leave through her uncle, who headed the Warburg Bank in Holland; leaving w...

  5. Miriam A. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Miriam A., who was born in Hungary, one of eight children. She recounts her father's position as a Hebrew teacher in Nyi?rba?tor; her brothers' draft into Hungarian slave labor battalions; studying nursing in Budapest; returning home in 1942; German invasion in 1944; ghettoization; deportation with her family to Auschwitz four weeks later; separation from her family, except her sister, in Birkenau; transfer to Dachau in August; and liberation by United States troops in April 1945. She shows a photograph of one of the men who liberated her.

  6. Pnina G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Pnina G., who was born in Nowy Dwor Mazoweicki, Poland in 1923, the youngest of eight children. She recounts attending a Jewish school; participating in Maccabi; anti-Jewish violence; German invasion; her family joining a brother in Warsaw; her parents and several siblings returning home; ghettoization; smuggling goods to her father in 1941; working with her brothers in a furniture factory; eating at a Joint soup kitchen; caring for the child of a rich family, from whom she obtained food for her family; smuggling herself into the Nowy Dwor ghetto; leaving to stay with...

  7. Leonard B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Leonard B., who was born in Łódź, Poland in 1926. He recalls his father's high position in a German company and his mother's as a school principal; living with his grandparents due to his parents' work situations; attending a private school; German invasion; closure of all schools; moving with his parents and grandparents to the ghetto area; an uncle being summoned by the Gestapo (they never saw him again); his aunt working in the hospital; his mother arranging a tutor for him in their home; hospitalization three times; his aunt saving him from a hospital deportatio...

  8. Boris G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Boris G., who was born in Skalat, Poland in 1922, one of three brothers. He recounts his mother's death when he was six; living in an orphanage; working for an aunt; Soviet occupation; German invasion in 1941; one brother being killed; fleeing to Kharkiv, then Krasnodar; working on a collective farm; draft into the Soviet army in Rostov; postings in Stalingrad and Beketovka; participating in the battle of Stalingrad; an acquaintanceship with Nikita Khrushchev; commanding several hundred soldiers; interrogating captured Germans; liberating Auschwitz; entering the cathe...

  9. Helen R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Helen R., who was born in Rozwadów, Poland in 1930, the youngest of three children. She recalls living with a loving, extended family; attending Polish and Jewish schools; German invasion; expulsion of all the Jews across the San River to Soviet territory; living with relatives in Z︠H︡ovkva for nine months; deportation with her immediate and extended family to Siberia; briefly living in a barrack, then with a family; her father organizing her brother's clandestine bar mitzvah; transfer to another barrack; one aunt's death; forced labor; meager rations; receiving Pass...

  10. Mark W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Mark W., who was born in ?o?dz?, Poland in 1917, one of three children. He recounts his family's emigration to Palestine in 1924; their return to ?o?dz? in 1927; his father's successful textile business; studying textile engineering in Verviers beginning in 1935; assisting German anti-Nazis; becoming engaged during a visit home; Germany invasion of Poland; moving to Brussels; his father fleeing to Trieste with assistance from a German associate who was a Nazi; German invasion in 1940; fleeing to Dunkerque, then Paris; being sent to a Polish army camp in central France...

  11. George S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of George S., who was born in Vilna, Poland (presently Vilnius, Lithuania) in 1925. He recounts moving frequently due to his father's career in the Polish military; living in Kielce, then Warsaw; participating in Maccabi; attending public school; German invasion in 1939; no contact with his father; he and his mother remaining outside the ghetto, posing as non-Jews; his mother placing him in a boarding school for children of Polish military; observing her hiding Jews when he visited; imprisonment in Pawiak in 1943; refusing to divulge where his mother was (she had been be...

  12. Sally B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sally B., who was born in Sieniawa, Poland in 1924. She recalls her parents' general store; attending Jewish school; observing religious holidays; antisemitism; Soviet occupation; living with her aunt in another town; returning to Sieniawa; German invasion; one brother's arrest (she never saw him again); her father's death from a beating; leaving prior to ghettoization; working as lumberjacks with her mother, sister, and another brother; their escape; their capture by Ukrainians; her repeated escapes and captures; escape with her mother; their reunion with her brother...

  13. Walter S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Walter S., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1923. He recalls his family's affluence; their immersion in cultural activities; increasing Nazi influence leading to his expulsion from Boy Scouts; joining a Zionist youth group which provided positive experiences; the Anschluss; he and his mother visiting every embassy, hoping to emigrate; his sister moving to England in fall 1938; being stripped of all rights by the Nuremberg laws; hiding in his maternal grandmother's villa during Kristallnacht; his arrest in a round-up; his father obtaining his release through the Nazi...

  14. David K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of David K., who was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia in 1937. He recounts moving to Spišská Nová Ves in 1941; attending cheder; his grandmother's arrest; living with his aunt in another town; conversion to Protestantism with his brother for protection; their placement in a convent orphanage; affection for a sister who cared for him when he was sick; awareness of other Jewish children; warm relations among the Christian and Jewish children; being hidden during German searches; the director's arrest; attending church; his uncle's visit (he was a partisan); evacuation in Ap...

  15. Vilma H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Vilma H., who was born in Szollos, Czechoslovakia (presently Vynohradiv, Ukraine) in 1921. She recalls her family's comfortable life; Czechoslovakia's liberal atmosphere which resulted in their minimizing the danger of German antisemitism; Hungarian occupation; antisemitic restrictions; ghettoization; deportation with her family to Auschwitz; separation from her father, mother, sister, and niece (she never saw them again); assignment sorting clothing; providing friends with clothes; the pervasive odor of burning flesh; volunteering for transfer; forced labor in a Sude...

  16. Marianne G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Marianne G., who was born in Hagen, Germany, in 1924. Mrs. G. recalls her parents' hat and yardage business; ostracism by non-Jewish schoolmates and teachers; her parents' decision in 1936 to sell their business and move to Dordrecht, Holland; her grandmother's arrival from Germany; the loss of other relatives who remained; the 1940 German invasion; moving to Gorinchem when Jews were forbidden to live in coastal areas; and a warning from Dutch police that she and her sister go into hiding. She tells of a Dutch family, active in the resistance, which provided her famil...

  17. Shirley K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Shirley K., who was born in Oshmyany, Poland (presently Belarus) in 1930. She recalls Soviet occupation; German invasion; the murder of all Jewish men including her father; ghettoization; hiding cousins; aktions; and deportation to a labor camp with her mother, sister, and other relatives in 1942. Mrs. K. recounts slave labor in Poniewiez?; selection of her grandmother, sister, and cousins (she never saw them again); several transfers ending at Stutthof; learning of the gas chamber; constant brutalization; a guard who allowed her to join her mother after they were sep...

  18. Sabina S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sabina S., who was born in Zawa?ow, Poland (today Zavalov, Ukraine), in 1931. Mrs. S. recalls her family being attacked by Ukrainians; seeing German soldiers who "killed with white gloves on"; ghettoization in Podhajce; hiding during Aktions; and posing as a boy to escape with her parents while digging graves in 1942. She recounts the taking of her younger sister and grandparents (who had remained behind in the ghetto); hiding in the woods with others in bunkers; assistance received from a Ukrainian family; liberation by Soviet troops in 1944; return to Podhajce; esca...

  19. Leo G. Holocaust testimony

    A follow-up, directed videotape testimony of Leo G., whose first testimony was recorded in 1980. Mr. G. discusses attending survivor gatherings; pervasive memories; his futile attempt to find his brother's body after liberation; pain upon viewing photographs from his hometown at a kibbutz founded by Be?dzin survivors; regretting that he cannot remember the names of those he buried in camps in order to tell their relatives; his agony imagining his parents' and siblings' suffering; constantly seeing their faces; knowing other people can sympathize, but never understand; being left for dead af...

  20. Julius H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Julius H., who was born in Cze?stochowa, Poland in 1918 to a family of six children. He tells of the anti-Jewish atmosphere in Cze?stochowa; antisemitic incidents increasing after 1933; membership in the Zionist organization Gordonyah; German invasion; escaping mass killings; anti-Jewish regulations; ghettoization; harsh conditions and slave labor; actions of the Judenrat; recovery from typhus; and liquidation of the hospital. Mr. H. details hiding his parents and sister in a bunker; liquidation of the ghetto; selection for slave labor in factories in the remaining "s...