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 30,461 to 30,480 of 33,375
Search result ordering
Language of Description: English

  1. Gerry S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Gerry S., who was born in Oberlauringen, Germany in 1935. He recounts his family's orthodoxy; his father's arrest on Kristallnacht; his family's emigration to Oslo in March 1939 with assistance from an uncle who was a rabbi there; cordial relations with non-Jews; German invasion in April 1940; his uncle's arrest and deportation in 1942 (he did not survive); his father hiding in a hospital pretending to need surgery; a Norwegian policeman informing his mother of an impending round-up; the underground arranging to hide him, his mother, and sister with non-Jews, then smu...

  2. Marius-Cornelius D. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Maurice-Cornelius D., an evangelical Christian, who was born in Poperinge, Belgium in 1930. He recalls attending officer training school in Antwerp beginning in 1939; capture by the Germans; incarceration in Kortrijk; deportation as a POW to Germany; returning to Kortrijk; joining the resistance in Merkem; arrest in May 1942; solitary confinement in Kortrijk for four months; reading the Bible; transfer to St. Gilles for two weeks, four days to Essen, then to Bochum; slave labor cutting patterns for shoes; Allied bombings in May 1943; transfer to Esterwegen; receiving ...

  3. Martin S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Martin S., who was born in Bronx, New York in 1922 and served in the United States military as a radio repair man in Europe during World War II. He recounts passing outside of Buchenwald immediately prior to its liberation and observing thousands of skeletal prisoners in striped uniforms as well as the pervasive stench of dead bodies. Although his unit left the next day, having no exposure to the prisoners except briefly observing them twice, Mr. S. notes it was one of his most traumatic experiences.

  4. Ralph M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ralph M., who is a retired United States Army colonel. He recounts encountering Dachau during his unit's advance through Germany; the fatal wounding of a lieutenant in the fight for Dachau in April 1945; killing a number of Germans while entering Dachau; their complete lack of knowledge regarding concentration camps; encountering freight cars packed with corpses and a few living prisoners outside the camp; seeing crematoria with four ovens, basements full of stacked corpses, and the room where human medical experiments were conducted; arranging medical assistance for ...

  5. Esther A. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Esther A., who was born in Radautz, Bukovina (today Radauti, Romania), in 1908. In this vivid testimony, Mrs. A. tells of her family's ardent Zionism; fleeing with her mother and siblings to join her father in Berlin in 1914; Jewish life in inter-war Berlin; participation in the "Bar Kochba" sports club; work for a Jewish newspaper; courtship and marriage; her husband's emigration to America in 1941 with his parents; her attempts to emigrate; and forced labor. She relates her mother's and a brother's deportations (she never saw them again); preparing herself for depor...

  6. David W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of David W., who was born in 1922 in Krako?w, Poland, one of three children. He recounts attending Jewish and public schools; beatings because he was Jewish; German invasion; fleeing east for several weeks with his brother; anti-Jewish restrictions; forced labor; ghettoization in 1941; his parents' deportation (he never saw them again); incarceration in P?aszo?w; public hangings and shootings; transfer to Auschwitz for less than a day, then to Mauthausen; meaningless slave labor carrying rocks; transfer to St. Valentin; slave labor in a tank factory; a non-Jewish acquain...

  7. Erika M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Erika M., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1922. She recalls her family's orthodoxy; her brother attending medical school; the Anschluss; her brother's expulsion from school; former friends turning on them; her parents leaving for Czechoslovakia; remaining with her brother; smuggling themselves to join their parents in Trenc?iansky; marriage in 1939; a futile attempt to emigrate with her husband from Bratislava to Palestine in June 1940; her husband's complying with a deportation notice (she never saw him again); rejoining her family; entering Nova?ky; meeting her f...

  8. André W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Andre W., a Catholic, who was born in Uccle, Belgium, one of four children. He recounts attending Catholic school; German invasion; fleeing with his brother to Montpellier; returning home; attending university in Namur; going into hiding after refusing to report for forced labor; joining the Resistance; leading sabotage operations and armed resistance (several Jews were in his unit); arrest; daily interrogations and beatings in Avenue Louise, his worst memory; transfer a week later to St. Gilles; identifying a Jewish prisoner as a Resistant, thus saving him from depor...

  9. Ruth S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ruth S., who was born in Sinsheim, Germany in 1933. She recalls Kristallnacht; her father's imprisonment in Dachau; her imprisonment, with her family, in Ladenburg in October 1940; her grandfather's emigration to the United States; deportation via Mannheim to Gurs with her parents and sister; being smuggled out with her sister by OSE (they never saw their parents again); living in an OSE orphanage, then with a non-Jewish family in Faverges-de-la-Tour as Christians using false names; their return to the OSE orphanage when neighbors grew suspicious; living as Jews again...

  10. Joseph A. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Joseph A., who was born in Lithuania in 1919. He recalls attending yeshiva in Kelme?; attending gymnasium; draft into the Lithuanian military in 1939; Soviet occupation; transfer to the Soviet military; leaving the military; German occupation; ghettoization; being selected with other men for forced labor in Germany; a rabbi encouraging them to help each other; frequent beatings; receiving extra food from friends; transfer to Auschwitz; transfer with other non-Polish-speaking prisoners to clean up the remains of the Warsaw ghetto; observing shootings of Jews who had hi...

  11. Sam A. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sam A., who was born in 1921 and served with the United States Army 21st Armored Infantry Battalion in World War II. He recounts approaching Mauthausen concentration camp on May 5, 1941, after German troops had left; the pervasive odor; gas chambers; pits filled with naked bodies; ovens with rollers to deliver bodies in an assembly line; and emaciated, dazed inmates. Mr. A. recalls three months of rotating guard duty at the camp while billeted in Linz; gradual improvement in the inmates' condition after treatment by military medical units; and realizing later that the...

  12. Irwin W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Irwin W., who was born in Sladkow Maly, Poland in 1920. He recalls a difficult, but socially rich, life; ghettoization; escaping from a mass killing with his brother; hiding with farmers; joining the Polish underground as a non-Jew; leaving when exposure was imminent; entering Kielce concentration camp; forced labor for HASAG; sabotaging production; transfer to Cze?stochowa; evacuation to Buchenwald, then Stassfurt; working in coal mines; being abandoned by the guards on a death march in Czechoslovakia; attempting to enlist in the Soviet army; rejection due to ill hea...

  13. Judith G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Judith G., who was born in Munkacs, Czechoslovakia (presently Mukacheve, Ukraine) in 1933, an only child. Ms. G. recounts her mother was a United States citizen; their intention to move there; Hungarian occupation; her mother choosing not to go the U.S. rather than leave Ms. G. behind; her father's draft into a Hungarian slave labor battalion in 1941; German invasion in March 1944; relocation to a facility for foreign citizens in Budapest (a Swiss safe house); her aunt hiding with them; transfer to a prison in Koma?rom in December; a death march on which her mother wa...

  14. Yasha M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Yasha M., who was born in Szczuczyn, Poland (presently Shchuchyn, Belarus) in 1920. He recounts attending school in Vilna; participating in Hashomer Hatzair; Soviet occupation; being sent to Lida to work in a factory; German invasion; fleeing with a friend to Baranovichy; traveling on a train with other Jews to the Warsaw ghetto; escaping; returning to Szczuczyn via Hrodna; forced agricultural labor; a round-up and mass killing of the Jews (he, his father and stepmother were selected for work); transfer to Lida in May 1942; working as a carpenter; escaping to the fore...

  15. Jack S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Jack S., who was born in ?o?dz?, Poland in 1924, the oldest of three children. He recalls their poverty; his father's death before the war; German invasion; ghettoization; forced labor; deportation of his mother and siblings; his deportation to Auschwitz in 1944; observing suicides; transfer three weeks later to Dachau; receiving food from Germans while working outside the camp; liberation by United States troops; living in Feldafing displaced persons camp; emigration to the United States in 1950; marriage to an American; and the births of two daughters. Mr. S. discus...

  16. Lusia G. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Lusia G., who was born in Brody, Poland in 1922. She recounts attending public school; Soviet occupation in 1939; German invasion in 1941; her father instructing her, her brother, sister, and her sister's fiancé to evacuate with the Soviet troops; transport to Kursk; working on a collective farm; her sister's marriage; her brother's and brother-in-law's military draft; moving to Saratov; food and clothing shortages; her brother-in-law's return; his earning extra food; the birth of her sister's daughter (she died two days later); moving to Poltava; her sister's depart...

  17. Margie A. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Margie A., who was born in Czechoslovakia in 1928, one of nine children. She recalls Hungarian occupation; some of her brothers being drafted into slave labor battalions; a deportation order; a non-Jew offering to take her and one brother; her father refusing to separate the family; another non-Jew taking their valuables (he returned them after the war); transfer to the Munka?cs ghetto, then Auschwitz; separation from her family except her sister; her sister's emotional breakdown; their transfer to Gelsenkirchen; slave labor loading barges; transfer to Essen; slave la...

  18. Emanuel R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Emanuel R., who was born in approximately 1911 in Moscow, Russia. He recounts a pleasant pre-revolution life; his bar mitzvah in 1924; emigration to Paris after Lenin's death; his family's Zionism (his father purchased land in Palestine in 1925 where he lives today); attending boarding school; marriage in 1927; French military enlistment; his daughter's birth; posting to the German border in 1939; retreating during German invasion; traveling to Vichy with an admiral; military discharge; reunion with his wife in Toulouse; registering as a non-Jew; joining the undergrou...

  19. Brigitte W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Brigitte W., a Romani, who was born in 1937, the youngest of seven children. She recalls childhood in Erfurt; frequent air raids; hiding in the forests; deportation of many relatives; liberation by United States troops; and continuing hostility toward Romanies.

  20. Otto S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Otto S., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1921. He recounts his parents' move to the United States in 1899; his brother's birth there in 1911; their return visit to Austria before World War I; his father's draft when war broke out; his return in 1918 with injuries which precluded their return to the U.S.; Viennese welcoming Hitler during the Auschluss in 1938; anti-Jewish laws; his brother's incarceration in Buchenwald; release as a U.S. citizen provided he left immediately; his father's death in 1941; his mother's emigration to the U.S.; hiding with his girlfriend'...