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Displaying items 2,001 to 2,020 of 4,487
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Language of Description: English
Holding Institution: Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies

  1. Marvin N. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Marvin N., who was born in Yasinya, Czechoslovakia (presently Ukraine) in 1929, one of eight children. He recounts his family's orthodoxy; Hungarian occupation; forced labor with his brother for the German military; escaping from a round-up; witnessing a mass killing; returning home; deportation with his family in 1943 to Hungary, then Kos?ice, then Auschwitz/Birkenau; selection for work with his older brother and father (his remaining family were murdered); a fellow inmate, too sick to eat, sharing his food; transfer with his brother to Mauthausen eight days later, t...

  2. Walter S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Werner S., who was born in Gelsenkirchen, Germany in approximately 1918. He recalls his family's affluence; his father's service in World War I; close relations with non-Jews; expulsion from gymnasium after Hitler's ascent; working in the building trades; his sister's emigration to Kenya; his father's strong German identity; assistance from non-Jews, including a nun; gradual anti-Jewish restrictions; Kristallnacht (he and his father were among the few males not arrested); deportation with his parents to the Ri?ga ghetto in January 1942; a privileged position as a bric...

  3. Edward L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Edward L., who enlisted in the United States Army after Pearl Harbor. He recalls serving in a medical unit attached to armored infantry; entering Ohrdruf in April 1945; piles of corpses, shot in the head and still warm; entering a barrack; observing extreme emaciation; speaking with a Greek prisoner who described what had happened and expressed hatred for the Germans; and leaving after a few hours. Mr. L. notes no prior knowledge or preparation for encountering a concentration camp; being dumbfounded in spite of having previously seen many gruesome war wounds; and not...

  4. Jack S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Jack S., who was born in Jano?w, Poland in 1923. He recalls his mother's death in 1935; moving to Be?dzin in 1938; German invasion; anti-Jewish restrictions; the role of the Judenrat and Moshe Merin; learning about the extermination camps; avoiding deportations with assistance from non-Jews; moving into the ghetto with his family; public execution of Jewish police; his brother's deportation to Auschwitz for underground activities in April 1943; his father's deportation to Auschwitz; acquiring false papers through an underground Zionist movement; deportation of the Jud...

  5. Tom S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Tom S., who was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1935. He recounts his parents' conversion to Christianity; his brother's birth on March 2, 1944; German occupation on March 19; anti-Jewish laws; visiting his father, who was a doctor, in the assembly place for Jews; his father's deportation; living with his mother, brother, and grandmother in the ghetto from October 1944 until liberation by Soviet troops in February 1945; learning of his father's death in Mauthausen; psychological and physical effects of his war experiences; joining his uncle in Switzerland in June 1947 (h...

  6. Dorothy B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Dorothy B., who was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1931. She recounts the history of her mother's and father's families; her father's modern orthodoxy; their affluent lifestyle; visiting her maternal relatives in Prague and a small Czech town; contrasting her formal German relatives with her casual Czech relatives; her family insulating her from antisemitism; a Nazi edict resulting in termination of employment of their non-Jewish maid; her father concealing his Jewish identity in public to avoid antisemitic violence; her mother's insistence that they leave Germany; liqui...

  7. Alex P. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Alex P., who was born in Szerencs, Hungary, one of eight children. He speaks of his happy life before the war, when he ran his father's bakery. He recalls the rise of Nazism in Szerencs in the late 1930s and tells how, in 1938/1939, he was drafted into the Jewish slave labor brigade of the Hungarian army and separated from his pregnant wife, whom he never saw again. He talks of working in Galicia, Munkacs, and elsewhere in Poland; of his stay in a quarantine camp in Transnistria; and of accompanying his brigade to Budapest, where he was liberated in January, 1945. Mr....

  8. Kenneth F. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Kenneth F., who was born in Richtenberg, Germany in 1921. He recounts attending the local public school and religious school in Stralsund; non-Jewish friends not longer associating with him after they joined the Hitler Youth; the impact of the Nuremberg laws, including not being allowed to employ non-Jews; living with his aunt in Berlin in fall 1935 to attend a Jewish school; his bar mitzvah; matriculation in 1938; masonry training in preparation for emigration; receiving permission to emigrate to Manchester, England as a trainee in 1939; working as a brick-layer trai...

  9. Leopold S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Leopold S., who was born in Hlohovec, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (presently Slovakia) in 1904, one of five children. He recounts a brother's death at age two (he did not know him); going to Polgár with his brother and working there; visiting his sister who had moved to London and friends in Heidelberg with his swimming club; moving to Bratislava; marriage; anti-Jewish restrictions by the new Slovak state, including wearing the star (he shows his); his mother's death after his sister was deported; posing as a non-Jew in Levice; hiding with his wife in several locations...

  10. Leonard L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Leonard L., who was born in 1922 in Japan to Russian parents, and served with the United States Army 82nd airborne division in World War II. He recounts meeting the Soviets in Ludwigslust; entering Wo?bbelin concentration camp in May 1945; "ambulatory corpses" milling around, including young children; piles of corpses; the pervasive, nauseating stench, which stays with him to the present time; speaking with survivors (he spoke Russian, German and French); survivors dying after giving them candy bars or other rich foods; German civilians feigning ignorance of the camp;...

  11. Maxi L. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Maxi L., who was born in Lyon, France in 1925, the oldest of fifteen children. He recounts his parents' Moroccan background; fleeing briefly during German invasion; his two-year apprenticeship in Villeurbanne; working in Lyon; being caught in a round-up in April 1943; internment in Montluc prison; a beating for trying to contact his family; transfer to Drancy in July; writing to his parents; deportation to Auschwitz in September; being selected (one of 100-120 of 1,200) for work; quarantine until October; remaining with French friends and Greeks who spoke French; tran...

  12. Walter B. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Walter B., who was born in Coburg, Germany in 1911. He describes cordial relations with non-Jews until the Nazi period; arrest with his father and older brother in 1933; their release after three weeks; having to liquidate the family business and property; joining relatives in Berlin; both of his brothers emigrating to Palestine; increasing restrictions, including wearing the yellow star; forced labor; marriage in 1941; his parents' deportation; a factory supervisor warning him of an impending action to liquidate Jews; a non-Jewish friend advising him that one of the ...

  13. Sonja S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sonja S., who was born in Hamburg in 1927 to a Jewish father and Catholic mother. She recalls living in Duisburg; her mother's death; living with her maternal great-aunt in Hamburg; moving back with her father, brother and stepmother in Berlin in 1936; destruction of her father's store on Kristallnacht; her father's deportation to Poland; seeing her father once at the border; his escape; her parents placing her and her brother in a Catholic orphanage (she had been baptized) to wait for a kindertransport to England; her parents' escape to Holland and Belgium; the outbr...

  14. Susan S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Susan S., who was born in Krummau, Czechoslovakia in 1934 to a Jewish mother and German-Catholic father. Mrs. S. recounts her father's affluent family; being doted upon as the first grandchild; German annexation; fleeing to Budweis in September 1938; being joined by her maternal grandparents and uncle; attending Catholic school; the impact of curfews and wearing a star on her mother; her grandparents' and uncle's deportation in April 1942 (she never saw them again); her father leaving for forced labor in August 1944 due to his marriage to a Jew; her mother's deportati...

  15. Philip K. and Isabella L. Holocaust testimony

    A follow-up, directed videotape testimony of Philip K., whose first testimony was recorded in 1989. Mr. K. describes Jewish education, culture, and community in Kisva?rda; ghettoization by Hungarian troops in spring 1944, including thousands from surrounding areas; his recognition of danger in spite of others' Hungarian patriotism; deportation to Auschwitz; the entirely different conception of time in concentration camps; a rabbi who kept a mental Jewish calendar and helped him maintain kashruth; dealing with entirely new moral issues; the uncontrollable power of hunger; his desperation whe...

  16. Alice M. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Alice M., who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1928. She recollects a strong Jewish influence in her childhood; the enthusiastic welcome for German troops in March 1938; anti-Jewish restrictions; an uncle in Venezuela who arranged for their family to go to Trinidad; SS men coming to their home in the middle of the night on Kristallnacht, kicking her father down the stairs and arresting him; her mother arranging for his release; their departure on November 20th; and her confusion and fright. Mrs. M. tells of travel to Amsterdam, then to Trinidad; help received from the s...

  17. Rena S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Rena S., who was born in Zdun?ska Wola, Poland in 1929. She recalls a comfortable life; visiting grandparents in Kalisz and ?o?dz?; German invasion in September 1939; walking to ?o?dz?; returning home shortly thereafter; confiscation of their home; living with grandparents in Kalisz; confiscation of their home; returning to her parents; ghettoization; her younger sister's selection in 1942 (she never saw her again); rail transport to the ?o?dz? ghetto; living with relatives; forced factory labor; hospitalization for typhus; deportation to Auschwitz/Birkenau in 1944; s...

  18. Keith S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Col. Keith S., who served in the United States Army Infantry during World War II. He recalls induction in July 1941; posting overseas in October 1943; participating in campaigns including the Battle of the Bulge; his assignment to seek and assist Allied prisoners of war; entering Buchenwald shortly after its liberation; unexpectedly finding civilian inmates in debilitated condition; stacks of bodies; total lack of sanitation; the relatively better condition of military prisoners; completing his assignment to assist Allied war prisoners; and leaving with his unit after...

  19. Sarna S. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Sarna S., who was born in Krako?w, Poland in 1909. She recalls participating in Zionist activities; marriage; her son's birth in 1937; hearing of the deportation of Polish Jews from Germany in 1938; choosing not to emigrate to Uruguay (her husband had family there) without her father; German invasion; her husband fleeing to Italy and Uruguay; fleeing to Tarno?w with her son, father, and brother in December 1941; her brother's deportation to Auschwitz (they received a letter stating he died from pneumonia in June 1942); hiding her father in a cellar during round-ups (h...

  20. Joseph W. Holocaust testimony

    Videotape testimony of Joseph W., who was born in Stuttgart, Germany in 1914. He recalls his parents' grocery business; their separation in 1931 (his father moved to Romania); celebrating religious holidays; attending business school; his belief that Nazi antisemitism would pass; Stuttgart's liberal atmosphere; exemption from wearing the yellow star due to his mother's Romanian citizenship; losing his job due to anti-Jewish laws; destruction of his mother's store during Kristallnacht; moving with his mother and sister into Jewish housing; working in a Jewish center processing emigration app...