Archival Descriptions

Displaying items 2,741 to 2,760 of 4,487
Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies
  1. Kochevit P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Kochevit P., who was born in Krako?w, Poland in 1931. She tells of her family's move to her grandmother's farm outside Krako?w after the first Aktion in 1942; the murder of her mother and brother in 1942, which she witnessed from a neighbor's cellar; hiding with a Polish family in Warsaw from 1942 until the end of 1944; and her adoption by a group of nuns, who, thinking she was Catholic, placed her in a convent where she remained until the end of the war. She discusses her awareness of being Jewish and of the need to hide that fact; her postwar reunion with an aunt; a...

  2. Rose S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rose S., who was born in Vranov, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (presently Slovakia) in 1910, one of four siblings. She recounts her mother's death in childbirth; her father's extraordinary devotion to his children; his death at age thirty-eight; her marriage in Kos?ice; Hungarian occupation; disbelief upon hearing of the fate of Jews elsewhere; concentration of Jews from the surrounding area in Kos?ice; deportation to Auschwitz; separation from her husband (she never saw him again); selection; regret that she was chosen to live; witnessing atrocities; transfer after three...

  3. Solly I. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Solly I., who was born in Ryki, Poland in 1930 to a Hasidic family. He recalls his four sisters; isolation from the outside community; speaking only Yiddish; pervasive antisemitism; German invasion; briefly fleeing to Z?elecho?w; returning home; his father arranging his and one sister's escape to hide with a non-Jewish farmer; having to leave the farm; living with a cousin in De?blin; their escape during the liquidation; a farmer catching his sister (he never saw her again); wandering the forest for six months; entering the camp in De?blin; living with his aunt; publi...

  4. David S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of David S., who was born in Bad Friedrichshall, Germany in 1911. Her recalls a pleasant childhood; his father's service in World War I and his strong German identity; boycott of his father's business in 1933; arrest with his father on Kristallnacht; his father's release due to his age; destruction of their home and business; his incarceration in Buchenwald; beatings, starvation, and illnesses; release after five weeks; a contact arranging for a Jewish family to sponsor his emigration to Scotland; reporting to the Nazi party in Darmstadt and Bad Friedrichshall until his ...

  5. Ann H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Ann H., who was born in Chrzano?w, Poland in 1925. She describes her religious childhood; increased antisemitism from 1933 on; German bombing in 1939; her brothers' departure for the Russian zone and her sister's to a forced labor camp; selection in 1940 when she and her sister were separated from her parents, whom she never saw again; deportation with her sister to Sosnowiec, then to Germany; and work as slave laborers. She recalls that despite horrendous work and living conditions, they always thought they would survive. Mrs. S. tells of worsening conditions in seve...

  6. Peter B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Peter B., a Catholic Romani, who was born in Žlkovce, Czechoslovakia (presently Slovakia) in 1935. He recalls living in Hrkovce; staying in underground shelters during bombings; harassment by the Hlinka guard; his grandmother's abduction by them; deportation of a Jewish family and of his uncle; vandalism of houses by the Hlinka guard; liberation by Soviet troops; playing music for them; receiving a horse from a Soviet soldier, which was taken by a Hlinka guard; the Soviets providing them with food; moving to Prague; military enlistment; returning home after two years...

  7. Odette H. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Odette H., who was born in Thessalonikē, Greece in 1927, one of three children. She recounts her family's emigration to Brussels in 1930; attending school; German invasion; fleeing to Paris, then Toulouse; attending school; her brother fleeing to Spain, and ultimately to Israel; returning to Brussels; anti-Jewish restrictions; going into hiding with her family in November 1942; obtaining false papers; arrest in 1944; incarceration in Avenue Louise; transfer to Malines; deportation to Auschwitz; remaining with her mother and sister; hospitalization; avoiding selection...

  8. Shalom K. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Shalom K., who was born in Łódź, Poland in 1925, one of four children. He recounts his father's death; his mother running his father's factory; attending school; German invasion; anti-Jewish restrictions; ghettoization; Germans killing his mother when she tried to keep them from taking his older brothers, then killing his brothers (he and his sister were hiding under a bed); transfer to an orphanage; slave labor in a shoe factory; his sister's transfer to a hospital; her murder there; living at a former Hechalutz hachsharah; deportation to Birkenau in 1943; transfer...

  9. Benzyon W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Benzyon W., who was born in Sieniawa, Poland in 1928, the youngest of three brothers. He recounts his family's orthodoxy; antisemitic harassment; participating in a Zionist youth movement; moving with his family to Jumet in 1936; attending a public school and cheder; German invasion; briefly fleeing to France; anti-Jewish restrictions; his bar mitzvah at home since the synagogue had been closed; his father and brothers volunteering for forced labor in 1942, hoping to save him and his mother (he never saw them again); he and his mother hiding wiith non-Jews in early 19...

  10. Henny S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Henny S., who was born in Hannover, Germany in 1925. Mrs. S. relates warm childhood memories; her father's profession as a master painter; building interiors which he designed; expulsion from school in 1935; attendance at a Jewish school; athletic competitions; Kristallnacht; a year's attendance at school in Hamburg; her father's emigration to Shanghai, where she and her mother were to have joined him upon receiving their documents; and their 1941 deportation to the Ri?ga ghetto. She recalls forced labor; the record cold winter of 1941-1942; her mother's illness; a se...

  11. Cornelia S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Cornelia S., who was born in a Hungarian village in 1915. She recalls life in the village and Budapest; attending boarding school in Budapest; marriage in 1937; the births of her sons in Novi Sad in 1938 and 1941; anti-Jewish measures; going to Budapest with her older son in 1942; learning her husband was killed in December; having her younger son brought to Budapest; German occupation; her arrest in Budapest (she never saw her mother and children again); transport to Kistarcsa, then Auschwitz; digging ditches in Birkenau; working in the Canada Kommando; assistance fr...

  12. Joseph B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Joseph B., who was born in Tripoli, Libya (then Italian) in 1928, the youngest of four children. He recounts his family's British citizenship based on their roots in Gibraltar; their orthodoxy; attending cheder and Italian school; anti-Jewish laws with the rise of fascism; the outbreak of war; his father's imprisonment as a British national; his aunt's death in an Allied bombing; their move to the countryside to avoid bombings; their arrest as British nationals, then transfer to an internment camp in Civatella del Tronto; his father joining them in March 1942; receivi...

  13. Maurice P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Maurice P., who was born in Brussels, Belgium to Polish immigrants in 1923, the oldest of five children. He recalls a happy childhood despite his family's poverty; the sacredness of Friday nights despite their general secularism; cordial relations with non-Jews; membership in Zionist and socialist organizations; leaving school to begin work at age twelve; non-Jewish friends attending his bar mitzvah; German invasion; traveling to Gravelines intending to enlist; returning after encountering German troops; obtaining authentic papers as a non-Jew; distributing Resistance...

  14. Max T. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Max T., who was born in Buchach, Poland in 1901. He recalls fleeing with his family to Vienna in 1914; attending business school; joining a sports club in 1921; his father's death in 1926; marriage in 1928; his activities in the socialist uprising in 1934; the Anschluss; arrest on Kristallnacht; incarceration in Dachau; his wife obtaining visas to Sweden, with assistance from the trade union, resulting in his release; their emigration to Sweden then, with assistance from his uncle in the United States, to America ; his daughter's birth in 1946; and his subsequent care...

  15. Stanley W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Stanley W., who was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada in 1923. He recalls being called into military service in December 1941; posting to England; training as an intelligence officer; arriving in Celle, Germany via Belgium and Holland; hearing about Bergen-Belsen nearby; a Jewish friend who encouraged him to visit; disbelief at the mass graves and condition of the survivors; his friend organizing aid for the survivors; Josef Rosensaft organizing the displaced persons camp; his friend organizing other soldiers to write home for packages and delivering them to the DP cam...

  16. Frank S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Frank S., who was born in Parkan (today S?tu?rovo), Czechoslovakia, in 1926. Mr. S. recalls his father's imprisonment as a "Hungarian master spy" in 1937; his release when Parkan was ceded to Hungary; his parents' separation in 1940; attending gymnasium in Debrecen; returning to Parkan with his mother in March 1944; smuggling food into the ghetto; losing his exemption (as the son of a Hungarian hero) from forced labor in August 1944; railroad construction in Transylvania; work as the commandant's wagon driver; a brutal sergeant whom he helped unmask after the war; and...

  17. Lucie W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Lucie W., who was born in Bad Berleburg, Germany in 1924. She describes instances of Nazi-related antisemitism in public school; her family's experiences during Kristallnacht and its aftermath; her journey to Belgium, along with her brother and sister, on a children's transport; and her unsuccessful attempt to escape into France. She also relates her illegal entry into Germany in February 1941, in order to emigrate to the United States with her family, and her subsequent emigration to the United States via Portugal.

  18. John M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of John M., who was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1926. He recalls enlisting in the United States military; training as a radio operator; assignment to the XVIII Airborne Corps; and entering Ludwigslust concentration camp shortly after its liberation by the 82nd Airborne Division. He discusses having only two vivid memories: two emaciated prisoners (nothing but skin and bone) in striped uniforms with shaved heads lying by the gate, barely alive; and a building filled with corpses in total disarray emitting an incredible odor. He recounts being stunned; feeling totally ina...

  19. Rabbi Armin F. Holocaust testimony

    Video testimony of Rabbi Armin F., who was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia in 1926. Mr. F. describes growing up in a small town near Bratislava; Hungarian occupation; studying at Yeshivoth; and his first awareness of danger when a Purim festival was cancelled in Bratislava because of the Anschluss. He recalls German occupation of Budapest, where he had been studying; increased restrictions on Jews; ghettoization; deportation with his family to Auschwitz in May 1944; separation from them; and incarceration in the Zigeunerlager (Gypsy Lager). He discusses Nazi methods of dehumanizing the p...

  20. Susi R. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Susi R., who was born in Germany in 1929 and grew up in Eisenach. She recalls implementation of anti-Jewish restrictions; her parents' close friendship with a non-Jewish woman; Kristallnacht; their friend smuggling her father to Brussels; living with her mother in Cologne, then Aachen; reuniting with her father in Brussels in January 1939; fleeing to Paris after the German invasion; her father's incarceration in Le Vernet (the last time she heard of him); and returning to Belgium. She recounts her mother arranging for her to live in a convent in Louvain in the summer ...