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 27,841 to 27,860 of 33,375
Search result ordering
Language of Description: English

  1. Hans-Peter M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Hans-Peter M., who was born in Charlottenburg, Germany in 1919. He recalls his family's assimilated life; cordial relations with non-Jews until the 1930s; attending gymnasium; a non-Jewish teacher urging the Jewish students to emigrate (many did); his father's arrest during Kristallnacht and subsequent release; futile efforts to emigrate; forced labor in Berlin; marriage in September 1942; helping a friend smuggle a baby out of Berlin; his family volunteering for deportation in 1943, hoping to remain together; separation from his family upon arrival at Auschwitz (he n...

  2. Thomas E. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Thomas E., who enlisted in the United States Army in 1942. He served in the 157th infantry regiment of the 45th division; had combat experience in Italy, France and Germany; and entered Dachau in late April 1945. Mr. E. recalls shock at seeing rows of railroad cars overflowing with corpses; emaciated inmates including children; anger and outrage directed at captured guards; reluctantly following orders not to kill captured guards; organizing a soup kitchen; and proceeding with his unit toward Munich the next day. Mr. E. discusses the complete lack of preparation for e...

  3. Susan W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Susan W., who was born in Czechoslovakia in 1925 and grew up in Ungvar (presently Uz?h?horod, Ukraine). She recalls Hungarian occupation in 1938; anti-Jewish laws; German occupation in the spring of 1944; ghettoization in a brick factory; transport in May to Auschwitz; separation from her parents; her sister's selection in October; transport to Velbert; forced labor in a munitions factory; transfer to Terezi?n; and liberation by Soviet troops in May 1945. Mrs. W. recounts returning to Uz?h?horod; learning no family members had survived; living in Prague; flashbacks an...

  4. Pinhas Z. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Pinhas Z., who was born in Ciechanów, Poland in 1924, one of nine siblings. He recounts attending Jewish schools for seven grades; training as an electrician with his older brother; antisemitic harassment; participating in Betar; two brothers emigrating to Palestine and another to Uruguay; German invasion; his family briefly joining an aunt in Warsaw; one brother working as a driver for a German officer; the officer providing their family with housing; farm work for a German who gave him special privileges; an unsuccessful attempt to flee with his brother to the Sovi...

  5. Ervin K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ervin K., who was born in Trenčín, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1925, one of two children. He recalls attending Jewish elementary school, then gymnasium; antisemitism beginning in 1938; Hlinka guard collecting their clothing and ski equipment; confiscation of the family business and home; expulsion from school; joining friends in Novaky in 1942; working as an electrician, which protected him from frequent deportations; his parents and aunt joining him; Jewish leadership of the camp; concerts and theater; joining an underground group planning an uprising; g...

  6. Judith B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Judith B., who was born in Berlin, Germany in 1923, the oldest of four children. She recalls her family's orthodoxy; attending a Jewish school; antisemitic harassment and restrictions; apprenticing as a dressmaker; her parents obtaining affidavits from relatives in the United States; her father's three-month incarceration in Sachsenhausen beginning in June 1938; her mother registering the four children for a Kindertransport; assistance from a non-Jewish neighbor immediately after Kristallnacht; she and her siblings traveling to Stockholm on a Kindertransport in 1939; ...

  7. Benjamin S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Benjamin S., who was born in Longwy, France in 1924 to Polish immigrants. He recounts their move to Charleroi when he was six months old; his brother's birth; his father's socialist activities causing them to move frequently; living in Gilly; attending secular school and a weekly Jewish religious school; participating in socialist youth movements; his father's participation in the Spanish Civil War; their move to Brussels in 1939; German invasion; fleeing with his family to France; his father's enlistment in the Polish military; assistance from the Red Cross; incarcer...

  8. Abraham L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Abraham L., who was born in Łódź, Poland in 1920. He recounts his father's scholarship; his family's focus on education; rabbinical ordination at age nineteen; German invasion in 1939; ghettoization; slave labor; a Jewish engineer giving him a desk job; his father's selection in 1942 (he never saw him again); his mother's hospitalization; his sister clandestinely retrieving their mother; deportation with his mother and siblings to Auschwitz in 1944; separation from his sister and mother; transfer with his brother ten days later to Altenhammer; his brother sharing fo...

  9. Arie Z. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Arie Z., who was born in Pruz︠h︡any, Poland (presently Belarus), in 1923, the elder of two children. He recounts his father managing the estate of a Russian princess; attending Hebrew schools; participating in Hashomer Hatzair; increasing antisemtism, including his father being fired in 1938; his finding another job on a distant estate near the Bialowieza Forest; his visits; completing gymnasium in 1939; German invasion on September 1; joining his father with his mother and sister; Soviet occupation; returning home; his father joining them; completing final exams for ...

  10. Vera G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Vera G., who was born in Kecel, Hungary in 1938, the younger of two children. She recounts her grandmother living with them; confiscation of the family business due to anti-Jewish laws; her father's one-year imprisonment due to a supposed violation; cousins living with them; former non-Jewish business suppliers bringing them food; German occupation in spring 1944; deportation with her family (aunts, cousins, and her grandmother) to Szeged, a week later to Strasshof, then to Sankt Pölten; the older children organizing a "school" for the younger ones while the adults d...

  11. Celia R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Celia R., who was born in Hungary in approximately 1923, one of five children. She recounts moving to Chrzano?w when she was three; her family's orthodoxy; German invasion; her father's arrest, beating, and resulting death; anti-Jewish restrictions; her two older brothers fleeing to the Soviet Union; ghettoization; forced labor in a textile factory; public hanging of a family; her mother's and brother's deportation; deportation to Marksta?dt, then Klettendorf; slave labor in a textile factory; transfer to Reichenbach, then Langenbielau; slave labor in a weaving factor...

  12. Yaakov E. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Yaakov E., who was born in Częstochowa, Russia (presently Poland) in 1904. He recounts attending Jewish and Polish schools; starvation during World War I; marriage and the births of two children; leaving his family to work in Paris for two years during the Depression; German invasion; ghettoization; his mother's murder by Germans in 1942; burying her; deportation with his wife and children to Treblinka; his selection as a carpenter (his family was killed); sadistic public executions; escaping; assistance from a local non-Jews who brought him to Jewish partisans; flee...

  13. Marianna B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Marianna B., who was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1934. She recounts her family's Hungarian and Czech background; disbelief that events in Poland could occur in Hungary; German invasion in March 1944; anti-Jewish restrictions; her trauma when a Hungarian soldier shot their dog; her parents' deportations; wandering the streets and stealing food; reunion with her parents after their escape; hiding with them in her uncle's cellar; assistance from a non-Jewish family friend; liberation by Soviet troops; and emigrating to the United States in 1957. Mrs. B. notes her hostil...

  14. Henry S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Henry S., who was born in 1934 in Paris, France, the only child of Polish immigrants. He recalls boarding outside Paris since his parents both worked; their weekend visits; his father enlisting in the French military in 1939, partially to obtain French citizenship; his father's decommission after French surrender; he and his mother joining him in Montrabé; attending school; his father's military friends warning them in summer 1942 that Jews would be rounded-up; crossing to Spain; assistance from the Joint in Barcelona; HIAS sponsoring his emigration to the United St...

  15. Jacques F., David I., and Paul S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Jacques F., David I., and Paul S. David I. was born in Antwerp, Belgium in 1938. He recounts his family's move to Brussels in 1941; his father arranging with an organization to hide the children; being taken with his brother by a member of the underground to the convent of the Brothers of St. Joseph in Gilly in July 1942; being moved to a children's home in Jamoigne in April 1943; schooling and outdoor activities; attending mass; a German raid; the director's kindness; and not recognizing his father in September 1944 when he came to retrieve them. Mr. I. notes eighty-...

  16. Karoline H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Karoline H., who was born in Barmen, near Wuppertal, Germany in 1911. Mrs. H. recalls childhood in a comfortable, non-observant family; lack of early exposure to antisemitism; attending the University of Freiburg, where she was mistaken for an "Aryan" by Nazi students; working in her parents' store after being barred from law school; her older brother's marriage to a Catholic in 1934; increasing antisemitic restrictions; her parents' naivete? about Nazism; and marriage to a naturalized Dutch Jew in 1936. She describes deteriorating conditions in Danzig (where her husb...

  17. Julie F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Julie F., a non-Jew, who was born in Schaerbeek, Belgium in 1908. She recalls her family's affluence and Catholicism; memories of World War I; living in Louvain; her father's accidental death when she was thirteen; briefly living in Düsseldorf with family friends; returning to Brussels; marriage in 1925; her son's birth in 1928; separation from her husband in 1939; living with her mother; opening a fashion shop; German invasion; closing her shop; a friend hiding Jews; working as a Resistance courier; arrest in April 1941; incarceration in St. Gilles; friendship with ...

  18. Johnny G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Johnny G., who was born in ?o?dz?, Poland in 1926, the oldest of three children. He recalls his family's relative affluence; their orthodoxy; antisemitic harassment; his bar mitzvah at home in 1939; German occupation; ghettoization; forced factory labor; his brother's death from malnutrition, then his mother's a year later; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau; separation from his father and sister (he never saw them again); slave labor on a nearby farm; a death march, then train transport to Weimar; clearing bombing debris; transfer to Bissingen; slave labor in a mine; ...

  19. Henri B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Henri B., who was born in Thessalonike?, Greece in 1919 to an impoverished family of four children. He recounts attending Greek public school; military service in Albania; attending university in Athens starting in 1940; benign Italian occupation; German invasion in September 1943; anti-Jewish regulations; obtaining false papers from a Greek police officer; hiding with friends; arrest; incarceration in Haidari; denunciation as a Jew; pointless slave labor; escaping from a deportation train in September 1944; discovering he was near Zolna? in Slovakia; assistance from ...

  20. Giselle W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Giselle W., who was born in Krako?w, Poland in 1902, one of six children. She recounts their affluence; moving to Vienna in 1914 due to the outbreak of war; two brothers serving in enemy armies, one in the Austrian, one in the French; a rich and exciting cultural life after the war which ended with the Anschluss; non-Jews helping them; her engagement (her fiance? went to Australia); she and her sister traveling illegally to join three brothers in Paris (the fourth was in Italy); her parents joining them; becoming "legal" after German invasion; hiding from round-ups wi...