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 28,301 to 28,320 of 33,375
Search result ordering
Language of Description: English

  1. Le?on K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Le?on K., who was born in Lotte, Germany in 1911. He recalls moving to Paris in 1933; difficulties with his citizenship status starting in 1934; enlisting in the French military in 1941; German invasion; returning to Paris after the armistice; deportation to Pithiviers in May; playing chess and sharing food packages among his group; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau in June 1942; slave labor doing various jobs; public hangings; assistance from a prisoner-doctor when he was ill; observing corpses everywhere; a death march, then train transport to Ebensee; transfer to M...

  2. Monique B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Monique B., who was born in Marseille, France in 1929. She describes growing up in an affluent and assimilated family; German invasion; her family's Protestant baptism in Nice to protect themselves; hiding in a village in Lot-et-Garonne; her parents' arrest (she never saw them again); being placed on a farm, unaware of the assistance provided by Jewish organizations to children whose parents had been deported; being placed in a boarding school; her older sister receiving a letter which her parents had thrown from the train which advised them to remain in hiding; retur...

  3. Henrika M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Henrika M., who was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1920, one of three children. She recalls pervasive antisemitic harassment; attending a Jewish high school; German invasion in September 1939; her father's death from a beating by a German soldier; ghettoization; factory work; her brother's position in the Jewish police which allowed him to help others; deportation of her mother and sister (she never saw them again); being rounded-up and twice escaping from the Umschlagplatz; deportation to Majdanek; assisting a wounded friend en route; slave labor in the tailor workshop; p...

  4. Marika B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Marika B., who was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1934. She recounts summer vacations in her grandmother's Czech village; attending public school; cordial relations with non-Jews; anti-Jewish restrictions beginning in 1938; her half-sister's emigration to the United States (her father was previously married); German invasion in March 1944; eviction from their home; trading apartments with an Italian man; her parents hiding her with a non-Jewish man; learning he was her father's illegitimate son; his returning her to her parents, fearing he would be exposed; placement in...

  5. Alexander B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Alexander B., who was born in Lučenec, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (presently Slovakia) in 1914, the youngest of three brothers. He recalls cordial relations with non-Jews; working as an accountant; annexation by Hungary in 1938; moving with his parents to Budapest in 1939; draft into a Hungarian slave labor battalion in 1941; deportation to the Pestlőrinc ghetto, then Kőszeg; hard labor and harsh treatment; transfer to the Romanian border three months later to destroy bunkers, to another location to build roads, then back to Budapest to build river embankments in II...

  6. Mendel B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Mendel B., who was born in Poland in 1921, one of three children. He recounts his family moving to Izbica that year; their poverty; attending Polish school and cheder; antisemitic harassment; his bar mitzvah; participating in Shomer Hatzair, Maccabi, and Ha-Poel Ha-Zair; their move to Łódź in March 1939; working as a watchmaker with his father; improved economic conditions; German invasion in September; briefly fleeing with his father to Izbica; ghettoization in February; forced labor in several ghetto workshops; pervasive starvation, disease, and death; deportation...

  7. Ina W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ina W., who was born in 1921 in the Ukrainian area of Poland. She recalls her orthodox home; Soviet occupation in 1939; German invasion in June 1941; roundups; frequent beatings; forced labor; communal religious activities; the murders of her grandfather and uncles; and transfer of the remaining Jews to a ghetto in a nearby town in the fall of 1942. Mrs. W. describes a mass shooting, which included her remaining family, during which she feigned death and escaped at night; finding two Jewish men and a boy who helped her; the shooting of the boy; her traumatic response ...

  8. Adela C. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Adela S., who was born in Jaros?aw, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (presently Poland) in 1912, one of nine children. She recounts her family's orthodoxy and relative affluence; attending school; working as a seamstress; marriage in 1931; living with her in-laws in ?an?cut; returning to Jaros?aw; the births of three children; her very happy life; German invasion; her husband's flight to the Soviet Union; joining him with their children (she never saw her parents again); their transport to Siberia; her husband's forced labor chopping wood and hers in a bathhouse; her daughte...

  9. Yaakov F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Yaakov F., who was born in Suwałki, Poland in 1924, the sixth of eight children. He recounts his family's affluence; attending Jewish school; antisemitic harassment and violence; one brother enlisting in the Polish military; brief Soviet invasion, then German invasion in 1939; a local German warning his father of imminent deportations; his parents arranging for him to hide with a non-Jewish family; attending church and wearing a cross; moving to the barn when the family feared discovery; escaping to the forest when the Pole hiding him tried to kill him; assistance fro...

  10. Andrej K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Andrej K., who was born in Botoșani, Romania in 1922, the oldest of three children. He recounts growing up in Iași; cordial relations with non-Jews; completing high school; being taken with his father and brother in a round-up; being beaten and shot; deportation in cattle cars; being told he was removed from the train in Roman, and a non-Jewish woman (she was recognized by Yad Vashem) and the Jewish community in Călărași caring for him (he does not remember this); returning to Iași; living in his family home with their former maid; working for the Jewish communi...

  11. Anneliese R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Anneliese R., who was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1910. Ms. R. tells of her close, non-observant family; successive moves between 1914 and 1921; studying languages and history of art at Berlin University; switching to archaeology in 1932 after returning from a summer in Italy; studies at the German Archaeological Institute in Rome after Hitler's accession to power; receiving her doctorate in 1936; and training as a nurse in Geneva when she could not find a teaching position. She recalls her roommate's arrest before Hitler's visit to Rome in 1938; having to stay with ...

  12. Otto F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Otto F., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1903. He remembers cordial relations with non-Jews; his legal career; a professional relationship with Arthur Seyss-Inquart; marriage in 1929; anti-Jewish restrictions after German annexation forbidding him to practice law; soldiers forcing him to clean floors simply to humiliate Jews; his sisters' emigration to England; acquiring U.S. visas through his wife's family; a non-Jewish friend obtaining official statements certifying them free from tax obligations, which allowed them to leave; a painful departure from their parent...

  13. Franciczek N. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Franciczek N., a non-Jew, who was born in Krako?w, Poland in 1923. He recalls his parents hiding a Jewish couple immediately after an attack on a cafe frequented by the Germans; his family's active participation in the Armia Krajowa, Polish Underground; the family decision to keep the couple; the woman attending church with his mother; his father obtaining false papers and employment for the couple; smuggling Jews and others to the Czech border; receiving letters threatening to expose them; staging a mock arrest and trial of the blackmailers with other AK members; cea...

  14. Edward S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Edward S., who was born in Krzeszowice, Poland in 1920. He recalls working in his father's sheet metal and roofing business; German invasion; fleeing to Krako?w with his family; returning to Krzeszowice; difficult conditions in a forced labor camp; efforts to help a younger brother; transfer with his father and older brother to P?aszo?w; his father's death in 1943; and transfer to Auschwitz and Sosnowiec, where his metal working skills helped him survive. Mr. S. recounts a death march to Austria in late 1944; the deaths of two friends in escape attempts; transport to ...

  15. Boris Z. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Boris Z., who was born in Rokiskis, Lithuania in 1926 and raised in Kaunas. He recalls the rich Jewish culture in Kaunas; anti-Semitic incidents; an unsuccessful escape attempt with his family after the German invasion in 1941; ghettoization; slave labor building an airport; a selection on October 26th, followed by mass killings in the Ninth Fort on October 28th; briefly working as a courier; digging trenches in Marijampole?; returning to Kaunas in 1944; volunteering to enter a camp upon the ghetto's liquidation; deportation with his family to Kaufering; and his mothe...

  16. Henri M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Henri M., who was born in I?zmir, Turkey in 1924. He recounts his family's move to Clichy, France in 1926; relatives emigrating to Saint-Brieuc; participating in Boy Scouts; German invasion; fleeing with his parents and brother to Saint-Brieuc; returning home after two months; anti-Jewish restrictions; smuggling himself to Moissac, in the unoccupied zone, with assistance from a non-Jew; living in a home organized by Jewish scouts (EIF); forming lifelong friendships, including his future wife; his brother's arrival; his parents living nearby; receiving false papers fro...

  17. Grete M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Grete M., who was born in Aurich, Germany in 1922. She recalls her orthodox, close-knit family; cordial relations with non-Jews; changes in 1938; attending nursing school at the Jewish hospital in Berlin; two siblings emigrating to England; her parents' deportation (they perished); hiding with a German family in 1942, then with their relatives in Upper Silesia; fearing exposure, returning to Berlin via Gross Strehlitz (Strzelec) to Beuthen (Bytom); arrest; transfer to Auschwitz; useless forced labor; assistance from a guard because she spoke German; seeing a cousin (s...

  18. Sarah G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sarah G., who was born in 1927 in Poland. She recalls emigration to Paris; her orthodox home in a Jewish neighborhood; her father's expulsion from France in 1934 (he was working illegally); his legal return a year later; a brief evacuation to Yonne with her mother and five siblings when the war began in 1939; German invasion of Paris in 1940; anti-Jewish laws; visiting friends in Pithiviers; her mother's death in 1941; placing her younger siblings in OSE orphanages; and eluding the Ve?lodrome d'Hiver round-up of July 16, 1942. Mrs. G. recounts living with a French Jew...

  19. Alexander B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Alexander B., who was born in Paks, Hungary in 1929. He recalls his comfortable, assimilated family; his parents' divorce; his mother's remarriage in 1938; anti-Jewish violence in school; German occupation in March 1944; deportation with his mother and grandmother in July to Auschwitz/Birkenau; separation from his family; transfer two weeks later to Mühldorf; slave labor building railroads; transfer a few months later to Kaufering; observing cannibalism by Russian POWs; train transfer to Dachau in late April; being injured en route during an Allied bombing; liberati...

  20. Alice S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Alice S., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1913, the youngest of three children. She recalls many injured veterans from World War I; active participation in a Zionist youth group, despite her parents' disapproval; completing studies at a private gymnasium, then medical school; her older brother and sister emigrating to join relatives in the United States; pervasive antisemitism; the Anschluss; the transformation of most Austrians into Nazis; the non-Jewish superintendent of their building protecting them during a round-up; emigration to the United States; training a...